A Case Review: Pennsylvania State Police Vs. Suders

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Nancy Drew Suders was hired March 1998 by the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) as a police communications operator for the McConnellsburg barracks, where her three male supervisors subjected her to a "continuous barrage of sexual harassment." Suders said one of the supervisors Sergeant Eric D. Easton, talked to her repeatedly about sex with animals. The second, Corporal Eric B. Prendergast sat on her desk and made gestures simulating oral sex. The third, Patrol Corporal William D. Baker made obscene gestures as many as five or ten times a night. In June 1998, Suders spoke to PSP's Equal Employment Opportunities Officer, Virginia Smith-Elliot, and told her that she "might need some help." Two months later Suders contacted Smith-Elliot again and this time told her that she was being harassed and was afraid. Smith-Elliot told Suders to file a complaint, but she never told her how to obtain the necessary forms or what procedures she should follow. Suders never did file a complaint since she felt that Smith-Elliot had been insensitive and unhelpful. Two days later, Suders three supervisors arrested her for theft of her own computer-skills exam papers. Suders had several times taken a computer skills exam to satisfy a PSP job requirement. Each time, Suders supervisors told her that she had failed. One day Suders came upon her exams in a set of drawers in the women's locker room, that's when she concluded that her supervisors had never forwarded the tests for grading. Suders took the exams with her at that point and later tried returning them to the drawer, but when she tried to do so her hands turned telltale blue since prior to that the supervisors already knew she had taken the exams, they had already devised a plan where... ... middle of paper ... ...that was the first thing that caught my interest, later when reading the case and discovering that two lower cases had both ruled against the plaintiff, that is when I decided to go further in the case. I wanted to know why it was that the lower courts had ruled against her anf not for her. The decision the court made was fair, I agree with the court. It was the fairest ruling the court could have made towards Suders considering that in reality she had lost the lower court ruling because of the fact she didn't really have sufficient evidence that indeed her supervisors had been harassing her. Therefore, I think the outcome of this particular case was fair and I would have to agree with the decision the United States Supreme Court made towards Suders. Citations www.supremecourtus.gov. www.law.com www.findlaw.com www.latimes.com www.nytimes.com

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