Takeaway: Treat every harassment complaint as a compliance issue that requires immediate, thorough, and well-documented action.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued an airline and recovered significant compensatory and punitive damages for a female employee claiming sexual harassment and co-worker violations of anti-harassment training. The employer appealed the verdict but could not reduce it by asserting failure to mitigate and other defenses.
The employee worked as a parts clerk for SkyWest Airlines at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. While there, she experienced demeaning sexual comments from her co-workers. At one point, the maintenance supervisor suggested to co-workers that they take the employee and sell her in the red-light district near the airport. Co-workers made innuendo-laden jokes and comments toward her, including comments about rape. She discussed the harassment with her husband and described some of the comments in text messages. She also reported the harassment to her supervisor. He seemed annoyed and said that they would see how it goes but, if he acted, it would put a bigger target on her back.
The comments continued and the harassment escalated, causing the employee extreme emotional distress. She went on medical leave and began taking antidepressants.
When she returned to work, the situation had not changed. Her co-workers continued making sexual comments toward her and many openly viewed pornographic images on their computer screens while discussing how they would like to have sex with various women. In addition, jokes about rape became common.
The employee wrote a letter to SkyWest management asking to work part-time because of the salacious environment and noted that she had already complained of it. She followed up with her supervisor and stated that nothing was done after she previously complained to him. He claimed not to know that the harassment was going on. She did not go into work the next day and her supervisor threatened to fire her if she did not come into work.
The employee complained to HR and expressed her belief that the supervisor’s response was ineffectual. HR contacted her to investigate. After asking a few general questions, the representative put her on paid administrative leave pending investigation.
Normally, HR would interview every witness, but this time she randomly selected witnesses. Witnesses described “sex talk” but the representative did not ask what that meant. The maintenance supervisor admitted that he heard it and participated in it, but that he would stop it if it went “too far.” After her investigation, HR ordered some employees to undergo additional training and gave written warnings but did not discipline the employee’s supervisor or the maintenance supervisor. HR did not contact the employee about the conclusion of the investigation. The employee tried to follow up with HR, who responded that she would tell the employee when she could come back to work.
While the employee was still on leave, the COVID-19 pandemic forced SkyWest to offer early retirement to many employees, including her. She waited to hear about the investigation but took early retirement on the day before the deadline expecting the environment to be the same.
The EEOC sued SkyWest under Title VII based on the harassment against the employee. After the trial, the jury concluded that she was harassed based on her sex and that SkyWest failed to take prompt remedial action. The jury awarded the employee compensatory and punitive damages.
SkyWest moved for a new trial and for judgment as a matter of law on punitive damages, which were denied. SkyWest appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On appeal, SkyWest argued that the verdict should be overturned because the employee’s text messages to her husband were inadmissible, the employee failed to mitigate her emotional distress damages, and the evidence did not support punitive damages. The 5th Circuit disagreed, finding the text messages admissible, and rejecting SkyWest’s argument that mitigation could serve as a defense to emotional distress damages. It further found that malice or reckless indifference to support punitive damages could be inferred from evidence that the maintenance supervisor violated anti-harassment training and that HR conducted a poor investigation.
As a result, the 5th Circuit upheld the trial court verdict in favor of the employee.
EEOC v. SkyWest Airlines Inc., 5th Cir., No. 25-10491 (July 9, 2026).
Jeffrey Rhodes is an attorney with McInroy, Rigby & Rhodes LLP in Arlington, Va.
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