High Court to Decide When a Joke Is a Job Action : Law: Justices are set to hear the case of a Nashville worker who quit over her boss’ sexual remarks. The ruling will help define the issue of harassment.

When do sexual comments and tasteless jokes on the job cross the line that separates mere annoyances from illegal sexual harassment? And how much is enough to prove that the line has been crossed?

At one extreme, a federal appeals judge in Cincinnati has held that women at male-dominated work sites must put up with “rough-hewn and vulgar language.” At the other, the federal appeals court in San Francisco has said that crude remarks about sex can amount to illegal gender discrimination.

Now the Supreme Court must resolve the issue in a case it will hear this week, and its ruling could affect virtually every workplace in the nation. Women’s groups see an opportunity to address one of their fundamental grievances; employers dread the damage awards of up to $300,000 provided by the 1991 Civil Rights Act.

The case of Teresa Harris vs. Forklift Systems, 92-1168, marks only the second time that the Supreme Court has considered a sexual harassment dispute.

It is the first since the issue captured the nation’s attention during Senate confirmation hearings for one of the court’s own members, Justice Clarence Thomas. In stunning testimony two years ago, Anita Faye Hill charged that in the early 1980s, Thomas had repeatedly embarrassed her with sexual comments when they worked together at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas flatly denied any such remarks.

In the case before the high court, both sides agree on what was said. What they disagree on is the significance of the comments.

The case was brought by Teresa Harris, who in 1985 went to work as a sales manager for a company in Nashville, Tenn., that sold and leased forklifts. She had been attracted to the firm by owner Charles Hardy’s reputation as an astute businessman.

She soon learned he was something else as well.

Harris said that he repeatedly humiliated her. “Let’s go to the Holiday Inn to negotiate your raise,” he said in front of a group of employees. At other times, he asked her and other females to retrieve coins from his front pants pocket.

Nor did he show much respect for Harris as a worker. “You’re a dumb ass woman. What do you know?” Hardy told her one day. On another occasion he said: “We need a man as the rental manager.”

Why did she stay in his employment? “I needed to work. I had two sons at home,” she said last week. “And I hoped it would end.”

In August, 1987, an angry and distraught Harris told Hardy she was ready to quit.

Seemingly shocked by her complaints, Hardy told her his comments were only “jokes,” not to be taken seriously. He noted that Harris had often stayed after hours to have a few beers with her co-workers and, in that setting, seemed unconcerned by the sexual banter.

Hardy promised to reform if Harris would stay. She stayed, but he didn’t change for long.

A few weeks later, when Harris returned to the office with the news that she had signed up a new long-term client, Hardy responded: “What did you do, promise him (sex) on Saturday night?”

Shortly afterward, Harris quit and filed a sexual harassment suit against her employer.

In 1964, Congress made it unlawful for employers to discriminate against any employee in regard to “compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment” based on factors such as race, sex, religion or national origin.

No one questions that an employer who demands sexual favors from an employee would be in violation of the law. In 1986, the Supreme Court went further and said that employers also violate the law if they create a “hostile working environment” for female employees.

Lower courts remain divided on when a working environment becomes “hostile” for women. Is it enough if a worker says she was offended by an uncouth remark from a co-worker? Or must she be hurt in some more tangible way?

The U.S. magistrate who tried Harris’ case concluded her employer was a “vulgar and insensitive” man who enjoyed “demeaning” women. His behavior, the magistrate found, ranged from “annoying” to “truly gross.”

Nonetheless, he dismissed her claim because Hardy’s harassment was not “so severe as to . . . seriously affect (her) psychological well-being.” In addition, he said, Hardy’s comments did not truly “interfere with her work performance” or cause her a true “injury.”

Harris sought to overturn that decision in the U.S. appeals court in Cincinnati. That court previously had thrown out several sexual harassment complaints by female workers in blue-collar jobs on the grounds that women must accept “sexual jokes, sexual conversations and girlie magazines” because those are the norm at male-dominated work sites.

A three-judge panel--all men--of the Cincinnati court dismissed Harris’ appeal without writing an opinion. So Harris went to the Supreme Court.

Dozens of women’s rights groups, joined by the Clinton Administration, are urging the justices to reverse the magistrate’s decision and set a much lower threshold for illegal sexual harassment in the workplace. The Administration argues that the boundary has been crossed if the comments are “sufficiently severe or pervasive” to “interfere with a reasonable person’s ability to perform the job.”

“What’s at stake is whether millions of American working women who are subjected to what Teresa Harris suffered will be able to get some recourse in the courts,” said Judith L. Lichtman, president of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund.

If the magistrate’s test--whether a woman has suffered serious psychological injury--is upheld, Lichtman said, sexual harassment on the job will almost never be punished.

Even Stanley M. Chernau, a Nashville attorney who is defending Hardy before the high court, conceded that employees should not be required to demonstrate severe psychological injury before they can win damages. But the court should rule for Hardy, he contended, because the magistrate who heard the evidence concluded that Harris had not been impaired in her ability to do her job.

“This is not the clean language law or the good morals law,” Chernau said. “It is an employment discrimination law, and (the magistrate) found she was not discriminated against when it came to doing her job,” Chernau said.

Harris, who plans to be at the Supreme Court to hear the lawyers argue her case Wednesday, said that the issue was not nearly so complicated as some judges have made it appear. She noted that the federal law referred to discrimination in the “conditions” of employment.

“I told (Hardy) I couldn’t work under those conditions,” she said. “He promised he would quit, but he didn’t. So I quit. I don’t think you need to be an expert to understand that.”