National Litigation Hotline

The Eleventh Circuit has held that the doctrine of qualified immunity served to bar a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by four security guards at Jefferson State Community College in Birmingham, AL. Snider v. Jefferson State Cmty. Coll., 2003 WL 22119938 (Sep. 15).

Four security guards at an Alabama community college, Thomas Snider, John Ponder, Tommy Diltz, and Benny Gilcrest, were allegedly subjected to unwanted sexual harassment by the college's head of security, William Shelnutt, from 1983 through July 1998. Specifically, the four employees alleged that, over a period of approximately 15 months, Shelnutt inappropriately and constantly touched them and made sexually suggestive comments and gestures. Ultimately, the four guards sued the school, the school's President, the school's Dean of Business Operations, and Shelnutt in federal district court, charging that the defendants other than Shelnutt had violated their constitutional rights to equal protection by failing to stop Shelnutt's conduct despite their knowledge of it and their duty to prevent such conduct from occurring. The defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiffs' complaint, arguing that each of the defendants was protected from suit under the doctrine of qualified immunity because whether the alleged harassment violated the Equal Protection Clause was unknown when the alleged harassment occurred. The four plaintiffs appealed.