An office worker who claimed two male managers reduced her to the stereotypical role of “subservient female” by demanding that she serve them coffee was not the subject of a hostile work environment, a Philadelphia judge has ruled.

Tamara Klopfenstein was fired from her job as a receptionist at National Sales & Supply of Bensalem, Pa., after telling the supervisors in an e-mail, “I don’t expect to serve and wait on you by making and serving you coffee every day at 3:00.” One of the supervisors had told her coffee-making was one of her duties and it was “not open for debate.”

“Please don't make an easy task a big deal,” Jason Schrager implored her. The other supervisor was Richard Blum.

It turned out to be a big deal as Klopfenstein sued National Sales for sexual harassment and gender discrimination, alleging she was terminated for refusing to conform to the “outdated and offensive” gender stereotype of the “subservient female employee.”

“Plaintiff was compelled to perform servile tasks for her male supervisors –- tasks that other female employees but not male employees were not required to perform,” she said in a court brief.

Klopfenstein cited a case which found liability against an employer for repeatedly asking female employees to run errands for male supervisors, including picking up lunch, beer and cigarettes and dropping off laundry. King v. Auto, Truck, Industrial Parts and Supply, 21 F.Supp.2d 1370 (1998).

But the plaintiffs in King were also subjected to derogatory comments and sexually lewd behavior and U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller ruled that Klopfenstein had failed to present any similar supporting evidence of sexual harassment.

“The Court recognizes that in the context of other indicators of sexism, getting coffee could evince a discriminatory intent,” he said in summarily dismissing her case, but

Other than asking Plaintiff to bring [the supervisors] coffee, there is no indication that Plaintiff was asked to perform any acts that conform to traditional gender-specific stereotypes, either inside or outside of the workplace.

Klopfenstein's other “evidence” of sexism included a lunch invitation from a male sales manager and the notation “Looks nice” on her employment application. “[T]he totality of the circumstances supports a finding that Plaintiff's gender was at the heart of the conduct of Defendant,” she argued.

Schiller also rejected the novel theory that Klopfenstein suffered “quasi” quid pro quo harassment because her willingness to conform to the “subservient female” stereotype was a requirement of her continued employment.

The plaintiff's attorneys plan to appeal, saying Schiller erred by failing to recognize that some tasks are “inherently more offensive to women.”

By Matthew Heller
6/14/08