Sexual Harassment Standards Rejected : Law: Appeals court finds that legal perspective has had a male bias. It says cases should be judged from the point of view of a ‘reasonable woman.’

In a ruling that could encourage more women to file sexual harassment charges, a federal appeals court in San Francisco took a swipe Wednesday at “male-biased” legal standards, adopting a novel “reasonable woman” perspective for judging harassment cases.

“The judge acknowledged that the existing (legal) theories and perspectives are male-influenced,” said Susan Rubenstein, a San Francisco attorney who specializes in sexual harassment and civil rights cases. In law school, she said, “we are all forced to study what has always been a reasonable man’s standard. There has never been a reasonable woman’s standard.”

The new standard was established in a case involving Kerry Ellison, an Internal Revenue Service agent in San Mateo, who filed harassment charges against co-worker Sterling Gray. Gray allegedly made numerous references to sex in conversations with Ellison and wrote her several love letters.

Gray was transferred to another IRS office but later was allowed to return to San Mateo. Ellison filed a sexual harassment complaint with the IRS in January, 1987, that was rejected by the agency as “failing to describe a pattern or practice of sexual harassment.”

She then took the case to a federal District Court, where a judge ruled that she failed to provide enough evidence to support her claim.

But in reviewing the case, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the lower court, concluding that a “reasonable woman could consider Gray’s conduct, as alleged by Ellison, sufficiently severe and pervasive to alter a condition of employment and create an abusive working environment.”

The ruling returns the case to the District Court for further proceedings and establishes a precedent for federal courts throughout the Western United States.

“It’s going to make it easier for women to prove that they have been sexually harassed on the job and to win more appropriate remedies for sexual harassment,” said Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred.

The “reasonable man” standard has made it difficult to prove “what sexual harassment is and the damage that it can do,” Allred said. “I do think (the ruling) will cause employers to formulate more guidelines on the job in regards to prohibiting sexual harassment.”

In its opinion, written by Circuit Judge Robert R. Beezer, the 9th Circuit said it adopted the perspective of a reasonable woman “primarily because we believe that a sex-blind reasonable-person standard tends to be male-biased and tends to systematically ignore the experiences of women.”

Lawyers said the ruling will force judges to change their views when reviewing sexual harassment cases.

“It makes it easier in the sense that District Courts are now counseled to be more solicitous of the female employees’ perspective,” said Glenn Rothner, a Los Angeles labor lawyer.