By: dmc-admin//January 7, 2002//
“Minger harassed Gawley for a period of approximately seven months. At times, he made up to three inappropriate comments to her each day. During this time, she told Minger at least ten times to stop harassing her. Even though her informal approach was not working, she waited seven months before availing herself of the formal complaint procedures available through the university. As soon as she used the formal procedures, which did not require her to complain to the harasser but provided an alternate channel for her complaint, the university took action and the harassment stopped. Gawley’s neglect of the university’s formal procedures during seven months of escalating harassment, in combination with the insufficiency of her repeated informal efforts to stop Minger constitute an unreasonable failure to take advantage of the university’s corrective procedures. Given Gawley’s concessions, and using the standard’s set out in Ellerth and Faragher, the district court was therefore correct to grant summary judgment in favor of the university on this claim.”
Affirmed.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, McKinney, J., Rovner, J.