What happened. Lisa Petrosino joined Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) in 1990 as an installation and repair technician working out of a garage on Staten Island. For the next 7 years, she was the department's only woman. She complained of continual offensive sexual language and stories, as well as graffiti scratched on the insides of terminal boxes­all of it extremely demeaning to women. She testified that her supervisors were aware of and participated in these activities and that they told her she would never be promoted as long as a particular man remained her third-level supervisor because he did not want any female managers.

Early in 1999, she was advised to transfer to the Cable Maintenance department, as getting promoted might be easier there. She was accepted, but the transfer was expected to take several months. In the meantime, because she was transferring out, she was denied any more of the rare opportunities she had been given to serve as an acting foreman. That's when she quit. In two proceedings in a federal district court on her claims, all of them were dismissed. She appealed to the 2nd Circuit, which covers Connecticut, New York, and Vermont.

What the court said. Appellate judges agreed that Petrosino's claims of failure to promote and constructive discharge couldn't stand, especially because she had not officially applied for any managerial positions in the covered time period. But the district court had ruled that both sexes were exposed to the sexual language and graffiti, so Petrosino had no claim of a work environment hostile to women. Appellate judges strongly disagreed with that ruling, sending the case back to the district court for reconsideration. The question will be whether Bell Atlantic is liable for the conduct in the absence of any adverse employment actions taken against Petrosino. Petrosino v. Bell Atlantic, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, Nos. 03-7366, 03-7708 (9/29/04).

Point to remember: Since the 4th Circuit's 2003 ruling in a case very similar to this one (Ocheltree v. Scollon Products), courts have been more likely to see unwelcome sexual conduct as more offensive to women than to men.