Another day, another decision about retaliation in the workplace. This time, the conflict involves Novo Nordisk and Vivian Garriga, who joined the drugmaker as a diabetes sales rep in Florida in April 2001. She filed suit after being fired in September 2007, which she alleged in her lawsuit was in retaliation for complaining about her new supervisor’s sexual harassment. A federal district court dismissed her suit, however, and a federal appeals court has now upheld that decision, even while describing her former manager as “boorish.”

Here’s the story: Garriga was assigned to a new supervisor in March 2007 named Brian Taylor, who she alleged soon began a pattern of offensive behavior. As an example, Taylor asked everyone at his first district-wide staff meeting in early May (2007) to name the celebrity with whom they would like to have sex, according to court documents. During a ride-along - in which managers accompany reps on their rounds - he allegedly leered at her breasts and placed his arm around her in a parking lot.

Her lawsuit contends that he made “unwelcome sexual comments, talking about sexual intercourse and other sexual practices in business meetings and other work settings…regularly walking behind her, rather than next to her, so as to leer at her buttocks when the two were on sales visits together, calling (Garriga) and another female subordinate by sexually demeaning names, making threats, making unwelcome sexual advances, and verbally bullying (Garriga) with derision, yelling and cursing to the point where he caused her to cry.”

In July 2007, she complained to HR. Two weeks later, after Taylor learned of the complaint, she was placed on a 60-day coaching plan for poor sales performance. The next day, she complained to the same HR person, who allegedly responded by saying: “you are doing a lot better than what shows on (Taylor’s) coaching sheet.” So why was she fired? And why did the court uphold Novo’s argument?Crude behavior is not supposed to be condoned, right? The court, however, was not convinced that Taylor’s actions were not sufficiently eggregious to have created a hostile work environment.

The court emphasized that Taylor’s actions would have had to have been “sufficiently severe and pervasive to alter the terms or conditions of employment,” and that subjective perception must be objectively reasonable based on four factors: the frequency of the conduct; the severity of the conduct; whether the conduct is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether the conduct unreasonably interferes with the employee’s job performance. While describing his conduct as “boorish,” the court decided three of four hurdles weren’t cleared (see the ruling).

Moreover, Garrgia also committed what most would consider a blunder….

That same July, Garriga and another rep sponsored a dinner at the home of one of her physician clients. Their boyfriends and the wife of at least one other physician also attended. “The dinner originally had been planned as a farewell dinner for a physician, but Garriga and Duffy arranged to pay for the meal as part of an informational training presentation,” according to court documents. Garriga argued Taylor was informed nine days in advance and had no complaints. But after her HR complained was filed, he complained to HR that the dinner violated PhRMA policies. By September, she was fired.