law class
1. Similarly, Courts of Appeals in sexual harassment cases have properly drawn on standards developed in cases involving racial harassment. See, e.g., Carrero v. New York City Housing Auth., 890 F.2d 569, 577 (CA2 1989) (citing Lopez v. S. B. Thomas, Inc., 831 F.2d 1184, 1189 (CA2 1987), a case of racial harassment, for the proposition that incidents of environmental sexual harassment “must be more than episodic; they must be sufficiently continuous and concerted in order to be deemed pervasive”). Although racial and sexual harassment will often take different forms, and standards my not be entirely interchangeable, we think there is good sense in seeking generally to harmonize the standards of what amounts to actionable harassment.
2. It bears noting that many courts in non-Title VII cases have held sexual assaults to fall outside the scope of employment. See Note, “Scope of Employment” Redefined: Holding Employers Vicariously Liable for Sexual Assaults Committed by their Employees, 76 Minn. L. Rev. 1513, 1521—1522, and nn. 33, 34 (1992)(collecting cases).
3. We say “starting point” because our obligation here is not to make a pronouncement of agency law in general or to transplant §219(2)(d) into Title VII. Rather, it is to adapt agency concepts to the practical objectives of Title VII. As we said in Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 72 (1986), “common-law principles may not be transferable in all their particulars to Title VII.”
4. We are bound to honor Meritor on this point not merely because of the high value placed on stare decisis in statutory interpretation, supra, at 13—14, but for a further reason as well. With the amendments enacted by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress both expanded the monetary relief available under Title VII to include compensatory and punitive damages, see §102, 105 Stat. 1072, 42 U.S.C. § 1981a and modified the statutory grounds of several of our decisions, see §101 et seq. The decision of Congress to
2. It bears noting that many courts in non-Title VII cases have held sexual assaults to fall outside the scope of employment. See Note, “Scope of Employment” Redefined: Holding Employers Vicariously Liable for Sexual Assaults Committed by their Employees, 76 Minn. L. Rev. 1513, 1521—1522, and nn. 33, 34 (1992)(collecting cases).
3. We say “starting point” because our obligation here is not to make a pronouncement of agency law in general or to transplant §219(2)(d) into Title VII. Rather, it is to adapt agency concepts to the practical objectives of Title VII. As we said in Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 72 (1986), “common-law principles may not be transferable in all their particulars to Title VII.”
4. We are bound to honor Meritor on this point not merely because of the high value placed on stare decisis in statutory interpretation, supra, at 13—14, but for a further reason as well. With the amendments enacted by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress both expanded the monetary relief available under Title VII to include compensatory and punitive damages, see §102, 105 Stat. 1072, 42 U.S.C. § 1981a and modified the statutory grounds of several of our decisions, see §101 et seq. The decision of Congress to