Brenda Campbell, Plaintiff/appellant v. Florida Steel Corporation, Defendant/appellee

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals' judgment reversing the trial court's damage award and dismissing Brenda Campbell's discrimination action against Florida Steel, but on grounds different from the intermediate court's. The court held that harassing conduct need not be explicitly sexual or racial: any disadvantageous treatment of an employee that would not occur but for the employee's race or gender may, if sufficiently pervasive, violate Title VII and the Tennessee Human Rights Act, and an employer with notice must take prompt remedial action reasonably calculated to end it. It also held that constructive discharge requires only a showing that the employer knowingly permitted conditions of discrimination so intolerable that a reasonable person would resign, and that a non-jury constructive-discharge finding is reviewed under Tenn. R.App.P. 13(d) rather than de novo. Applying those rules, the court concluded the evidence preponderates against finding that Florida Steel failed to respond promptly to the post-remediation "cold-shoulder treatment" or that Campbell was constructively discharged.