Carol Isaacs worked for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, packaging pet food and preparing the bags for shipment, for more than five
*385
years. In 2002 and 2008 she filed charges of sex discrimination with thе EEOC, contending that her employer violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The district court granted summary judgment against Isaacs, who had sued not only Hill’s but also Colgate-Palmolive, its corporate parent. As the district court remarked, Colgate was not Isaacs’ employer, and she offers no reason why an investor should be liable for Hill’s acts. Cf.
United States v. Bestfoods,
Many of Isаacs’ claims in this litigation are outside the scope of the administrative filings. She complains, for example, about her discharge in 2005, but she never filed a charge cоncerning that event, and the charges in 2002 and 2003 could not have alerted the employer to a grievance about events yet to occur. A short interval between thе charge and the complained-of events might not have impeded investigation and conciliation: if Isaacs had been fired a week after her charge, the EEOC would have learned this in the course of its investigation, but the gap was much longer and precluded any administrative inquiry. The same is true of her assertion that the firm retaliated agаinst her for filing these charges and attempting to protect her rights. If she wanted to litigate such a theory, she had to use the administrative process first. Her other arguments likewise are well covered by the district court’s opinion and need not be addressed here&emdash;all but one, that is.
A claim of a hostile work environment was presented in the 2003 charge. The Supreme Court treats a hostile work environment as one unlawful employment practice. See
National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan,
Hill’s does not invoke the doctrine of laches, which curtails prеjudicial delay. See
Pruitt v. Chicago,
This change of job assignment means, Hill’s contends, thаt the conditions that Isaacs experienced while with the Packaging Team may not be considered, as they occurred more than 300 days before her charge. And the conditions she experienced with the Stretchwrap Team were not severe enough to constitute a hostile working environment, the district judge concluded. The judge summаrized what he understood to be Isaacs’ claims about conditions on the Stretchwrap Team:
1) [Isaacs] glimpsed objectionable materials on computer sсreens two times; 2) she frequently heard comments over the radio in Stretchwrap about “dragging my wood,” or “my wood’s awful long” that she took to be sexual references [a double entendre, with the non-sexual *386 mеaning referring to the wooden pallets]; 3) Pebworth [the team leader in Stretchwrap] twice told her that her rear end was so big that two men could climb on it; 4) Pebworth made сrying sounds over the radio in an effort to mock her, used the word “bitch” in her presence a few times, and the term “fucking bitch” twice in reference to someone other thаn Isaacs.
We may assume (without deciding) that, if this is all there was to it, the conditions were unpleasant but not serious or pervasive enough to violate Title VII. See
Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.,
When deciding that Isaacs experienced two distinct episodes of hostile work еnvironment, the district court concentrated on the identities of her harassers. One group of men made life hard for her in Packaging; a different group vexed her in Stret-chwrap. But why should this matter? Isaacs has not sued her co-workers; the entity responsible for complying with Title VII is the employer, of which Isaacs had just one. And employers are nоt vicariously responsible for misconduct in the workplace; employers are responsible for their own conduct (or omissions)&emdash;which is to say, for how they resрond (or fail to respond) after receiving notice that an employee may be suffering from disparate treatment at co-workers’ hands. See
Faragher v. Boca Raton,
As Isaacs relаted events, she complained repeatedly to supervisors and management-level personnel at Hill’s Pet Nutrition about how the men were treating her, and she received the same response every time: one or another variation on “grin and bear it.” The employer’s approach thus remained constant. Doing nothing after receiving multiple complaints about serious conditions is a straight road to liability under Title VII. See
EEOC v. Indiana Bell Telephone Co.,
An employee moved from one plant to another, where a different set of managers made decisions about working conditions, might well experience different hostile environments for the purpose of Morgan. As long as the employeе remains within a single chain of command, however, and the same people control how the employer addresses problems in the workplace, there is оnly one employment practice, and all events may be considered (subject to the possibility of laches) to determine whether that employment practice violates Title VII. Isaacs therefore is entitled to present for consideration her treatment throughout her employment at Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
Ample evidence would аllow a trier of fact to conclude that Isaacs was subjected to a pervasively hostile environment, designed by the male workers to drive women from the plant оr at least express domination and control over them. Isaacs testified by deposition that her team leader in Packaging refused to train her unless she listened to him dеscribe his sexual *387 exploits and desires. When she told him to stop, all that stopped was the training— the sexual comments continued over the radio (workers in both Packaging аnd Stretchwrap used radios, on a single frequency, to coordinate their activities) and whenever they met. The radio carried not only the talk about the men’s “wood” but аlso moaning sounds whenever the men knew that Isaacs was listening. According to one of Isaacs’ female co-workers, simulating the sounds of sex “was [the men’s] favorite thing to do on the radio.”
When Isaacs moved from Packaging to Stretchwrap, the two team leaders met to discuss her, and Isaacs’ new superior (Peb-worth) picked up wherе her old one left off. When she complained, Pebworth “accidentally” ran into her with a forklift, spilling 700 pounds of pet food, and remarked: “See what can happеn to you, bitch.” Her car was vandalized in the parking lot a few days later. Pebworth repeatedly tried to get Isaacs to join him in viewing pornography that he kept on a computer in the plant. Several women in addition to Isaacs gave evidence that men systematically made the lives of women in the plant miserable — and sincе the team leaders were the main offenders, other men felt no hesitation in joining this jolly good fun.
A jury could infer that working conditions for female laborers at Hill’s Pet Nutrition were materially worse than the conditions for male laborers, that managers of the firm knew this, and that they did nothing because the firm deemed the men’s morale more important than the women’s welfare. That conclusion would be enough to support an award of damages under Title VII.
The judgment is affirmed, except with respect to the hostile-working-conditions claim. On that subject the judgment is reversed and the case remanded for trial.