Co-Workers’ Erections Not Enough for Harassment Claim

A former Interior Department secretary in Minnesota didn’t adequately plead a sexual harassment claim by describing separate incidents in which two male co-workers spoke with her while sexually aroused, a divided Eighth Circuit ruled (Blomker v. Jewell, 2016 BL 253677, 8th Cir., No. 15-1787, 8/5/16).

Denise Blomker failed to state a plausible hostile work environment claim under federal law because those two incidents and the five other instances of alleged harassment she cited occurred over a three-year period and involved two men, a 2-1 majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said ...