A California appellate court ruled that a L'Oreal sales manager can go ahead
with her harassment case in which she alleges she was retaliated against after
she refused to obey her male boss's order to fire an employee because he didn't
find her attractive enough, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.For a Limited Time receive a
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Download NowIn a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Elysa Yanowitz contends
her boss, a general manager, accompanied her on a tour of a store in 1997 and
told her that a female sales clerk was "not good-looking enough."
Yanowitz says the clerk was one of the most productive workers in the region.
On a subsequent tour, she alleges, her boss saw a young blond woman and said:
"Get me one that looks like that."
She claims in the lawsuit executives harassed, intimidated, and criticized
her relentlessly after she refused to fire the clerk. Yanowitz says the harassment
was so difficult that she was forced to quit the firm, for which she worked
18 years, according to the newspaper.
A Superior Court judge dismissed the case before trial, according to the Chronicle.
The appellate court reinstated the suit, ruling that sales manager's accusations,
if proven, could show the company retaliated against her based on her refusal
to participate in discrimination, the newspaper reports.
"A male executive's order to fire a female employee because she fails
to meet the executive's standards for sexual attractiveness is an act of sex
discrimination when no similar standards are applied to men," wrote Justice
Linda Gemello.
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