When ‘sexting’ becomes sexual harassment

A recent California case addressed the question of whether offsite and afterhours texting between work friends could constitute sexual harassment. A pharmacist’s sexual harassment lawsuit against her former employer, Rite Aid, stemmed from an offsite and afterhours text exchange she had with a district manager in which he sent lewd photographs to her.

Background

The Rite Aid district manager and the pharmacist met in the early fall of 2017 when she did her six-week school rotation with him. They developed a social relationship and became close friends. They were friends before she started working at Rite Aid. She also viewed the manager as a mentor.

The two texted frequently about all kinds of things, including travel and vacations, exercise, weight loss, food, restaurants, getting together for meals, religious observances, family and relatives, their respective spouses, pets, social media, drinking and alcohol, birthdays, fashion, and work issues. They exchanged hundreds of texts. They would go out for coffee and meet up for lunch. In December 2018, the manager and his wife joined the pharmacist and her husband (and another couple) for dinner to celebrate the pharmacist’s birthday.

Texts about various work-related topics were interspersed with texts about personal topics, and all the text communications were on the manager’s and the pharmacist’s respective personal cell phones.