CINCINNATI — Judge Matthew McFarland ruled that Moeller High School and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati did not discriminate against a woman who alleges she faced backlash after reporting sexual harassment and assault at the hands of her then-supervisor, according to a ruling filed March 9.
The original lawsuit was filed in 2023. In it, the woman — identified only as Jane Doe — said her former supervisor sexually harassed her multiple times between 2016 and 2021. She said the supervisor, who is no longer at the school, would often comment on her clothing or appearance and touch or hug her inappropriately.
At one point, she claims her former supervisor trapped her in an office, kissing and groping her. Months later, she said he once again trapped her on campus — this time raping her.
The lawsuit says the woman told the school's administrators multiple times that "she was not safe as long as she was working for" her supervisor, but officials took no action.
According to McFarland's ruling, both Moeller and the Archdiocese claim they never knew of the allegations of sexual harassment, or the alleged assaults, because Jane Doe never reported the incidents. Once she did formally report her supervisor in January of 2021, Moeller "took prompt action to investigation and remediate the situation, suspending [the man] and launching the investigation that led to the termination of his employment," McFarland wrote.
However, because Jane Doe did not report the alleged harassment until over four years after the first alleged assault and around two months from the final assault allegations, McFarland ruled Moeller and the Archdiocese are not liable for the supervisor's alleged actions.
The judge also ruled that the school and Archdiocese could not have discriminated against her over her diagnosis of PTSD following the assaults, because neither knew about it. Jane Doe was granted FMLA time in 2021 and it was during the application period for that time off that Jane Doe reported the PTSD to the school, the ruling says.
The ruling also says, although Jane Doe claimed she was "constructively" terminated in 2021, she'd "informed Moeller that she planned to retire upon the expiration of her FMLA leave" in December 2021.
Other claims were dismissed or deemed "abandoned" by the defendants through the course of the legal process.
McFarland also ruled in favor of Jane Doe's former supervisor in a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress leveled in the lawsuit. However, the judge conceded that was, in part, because Ohio's laws have a narrow interpretation of what counts as an "intentional infliction of emotional distress." Specifically, Jane Doe had to prove that her former supervisor's assaults and harassment of her was "so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community."
McFarland's ruling quotes a court finding from the 90s that points out "to say that Ohio courts narrowly define 'extreme and outrageous conduct' would be something of an understatement" and adds that, because of that narrow interpretation, court rulings have created the precedent that sexual or demeaning comments are bit "severe and reprehensible conduct."
There are also Ohio court precedents stating that no "extreme and outrageous conduct" occurred in cases where a co-worker threatened the plaintiff's employment, offered a job in exchange for apparent sexual favors, made unwelcome lewd jokes or engaged in unwelcome touching.
