“Are you wearing shorter skirts yet”? Stupid things bosses say that can lead your company to the Supreme Court

Kimberly Ellerth was 23, fresh out of college and recently married, when she landed a prized marketing job with Burlington Industries in its Chicago office. But eventually her dream job became unbearable, she said, after a boss began making sexual advances toward her.

As we continue our HR Stories of Court Cases and Laws that made HR today we look at the second case in 1998 that the US Supreme Court saw in regard to sexual harassment. The case of Ellerth vs Burlington Industries continued the question in the Faragher case….whether a worker has a legitimate sexual harassment case if he or she neither submitted to the boss nor suffered any tangible detriment because they said no.

Kimberly is a real person….but she became infamous when her last name was tagged in one of the most famous employment law cases of all time. Listen to this episode of HR Stories Podcast and find out why!


CLICK HERE to hear this interesting podcast.


Chuck Simikian, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, Principal and Lead Consultant of Alliance HR Partners is the host of HR Stories Podcasts. He is the endorsed service provider of EAF and certified seminar facilitator and speaker for Pryor Learning Solutions. He is a seasoned certified HR professional and author with over 25 years of corporate HR experience spanning all aspects of Human Resources including recruitment, training, employee relations, benefits administration, payroll, and HR compliance. Chuck and his podcast-partner John Thalheimer, help Human Resource Professionals and Business Owners learn the best practices of human resources management.