''Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services'', 523 U.S. 75 (1998), is a landmark decision of the

US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...

. The case arose out of a suit for sex discrimination by a male oil-rig worker, who claimed that he was repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment by his male co-workers with the acquiescence of his employer. The Court held that the protection of

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requi ...

against

workplace discrimination Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, ...

"because of... sex" applied to harassment in the

workplace A workplace is a location where someone works, for their employer or themselves, a place of employment. Such a place can range from a home office to a large office building or factory. For industrialized societies, the workplace is one of th ...

between members of the same sex.

Background

In late October 1991, Joseph Oncale was working for Sundowner Offshore Services on a Chevron USA Inc. oil platform in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

. He was employed as a

roustabout Roustabout (Australia/New Zealand English: rouseabout) is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials ...

on an eight-man crew. On several occasions, Oncale was forcibly subjected to sex-related, humiliating actions against him by his coworkers in the presence of the rest of the crew. Oncale was also

sodomized Sodomy () or buggery (British English) is generally anal or oral sex between people, or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal ( bestiality), but it may also mean any non- procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term ''so ...

with a bar of soap and threatened with rape. Oncale's complaints to supervisory personnel produced no remedial action. Instead, the company's Safety Compliance Clerk called him a name suggesting homosexuality. Oncale eventually quit, asking that his pink slip reflect that he "voluntarily left due to sexual harassment and

verbal abuse Verbal abuse (also known as verbal aggression, verbal attack, verbal violence, verbal assault, psychic aggression, or psychic violence) is a type of psychological/mental abuse that involves the use of oral, gestured, and written language direct ...

." Oncale filed a complaint against Sundowner in the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (in case citations, E.D. La.) is a United States federal court based in New Orleans. Appeals from the Eastern District of Louisiana are taken to the United States Court of A ...

, alleging that he was discriminated against in his employment because of his sex. Relying on earlier precedents, the district court granted summary judgment to the defendant: "Mr. Oncale, a male, has no cause of action under Title VII for harassment by male co-workers." Oncale appealed, and the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (in case citations, 5th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * Eastern District of Louisiana * M ...

affirmed the decision. After granting a petition for

writ of certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

, the Supreme Court reversed the decision.

Decision

Justice Scalia, writing for the unanimous court (with Justice Thomas concurring), reversed the decision of the district court and remanded the case for further proceedings in accordance with the instruction that a male can be discriminated against by members of the same sex under Title VII. ''Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services'' set the precedent for analyzing same-sex harassment and sexual harassment without motivation of "sexual desire" by stating that any discrimination based on sex is actionable if it places the victim in an objectively-disadvantageous working condition, regardless of the gender of the victim or the harasser. The case was subsequently remanded by the

to the trial court. The case was then settled out of court.

Impact and implementation

The application of the ''Oncale'' case has caused some difficulty in the lower federal courts, which have struggled with how to determine whether any particular case of same-sex harassment is "because of sex." In particular, courts have struggled with how to deal with harassment that appears to be based on actual or perceived

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

because employment discrimination based on sexual orientation was not explicitly forbidden by federal law. In July 2015, the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...

determined that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation was illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and used the ''Oncale'' decision as a basis''.'' Because it set a precedent regarding harassment "because of sex," ''Oncale v. Sundowner'' has been lauded as a landmark gay rights case, even though all those involved were heterosexual. In the Court's opinion in ''Oncale'', the inclusion of sexual discrimination between same sex individuals as a protected class under Title VII set an important precedent of expanding the interpretation of protected classes under § 2000e-2(a)(1). This precedent was later reflected upon in ''Bostock v. Clayton County'' along with two other important cases, all of which considered the word "sex" and its definition in regards to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Eskridge Jr., William N. (November 2017). "Title VII's Statutory History and the Sex Discrimination Argument for LGBT Workplace Protections". ''Yale Law Journal. 127'' (2): 322.

References

External links

*{{caselaw source , case=''Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services'', {{ussc, 523, 75, 1998, el=no , cornell =https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-568.ZS.html , findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/523/75.html , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/523/75/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep523/usrep523075/usrep523075.pdf , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/1997/96-568
Database of important sexual harassment cases and litigation
1998 in LGBT history 1998 in United States case law Business ethics cases Harassment case law Sexual harassment in the United States United States employment discrimination case law United States gender discrimination case law United States LGBT rights case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court Violence against men in North America

Background

Decision

Impact and implementation

See also

References

External links