Mad Men: Season Five.

A female executive at an advertising agency, who prevailed at trial, lost on appeal on her gender harassment claim.  The agency owner dressed as Santa at holiday parties and had women employees sit on his lap, wore a Santa hat with “bitch” across the brow, talked with the plaintiff about her sex life using a certain hand gesture and asked her whether she “got any.”  One of the employees brought a plastic penis to the office and executives sometimes referred to women clients by a word that begins with a “c.”  One client was called “a demanding, unconstructive, counter-productive, mindless, shitty-ass bitch” in an agency email by an executive.  The same executive sent another email which called plaintiff “one big-titted mindless one.”  Plaintiff complained to her supervisor as well as the head of the agency.  The majority opinion states the plaintiff did not demonstrate severe or pervasive harassment based on gender.

The dissent disagreed with the majority opinion in “that the nonsexual acts of retaliation that took place could not be considered discrimination due to gender;” stating, “from the moment of her complaint, the atmosphere surrounding her job changed completely” and she became a marked woman, and that “the non-sexual acts of retaliation that took place” should be considered discrimination due to gender.  Brennan v. Townsend & O’Leary   (Cal. App. Fourth Dist., Div. 3; October 18, 2011) 199 Cal.App.4th 1336.