Actress-model’s Title VII harassment claims against resort fail

An actress and model who was retained by a resort for assorted services could not bring Title VII claims against the resort owners for alleged sexual harassment by its primary executive, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled.

Defendant Preserve at Boulder Hills, which developed the Preserve Sporting Club & Residences resort in Richmond, Rhode Island, retained the plaintiff, a model, actress and social media personality, to appear in commercials, social media videos and print ads for the resort and also to handle various promotional and logistic tasks at special events on the property.

According to the plaintiff, the resort’s key principal repeatedly subjected her to sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and inappropriate ogling and touching. In her federal suit, she asserted that the alleged misconduct amounted to employment discrimination under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act.

The defendants argued that because the plaintiff was a contractor and not actually an employee of the resort, they could not face Title VII liability as employers.

Judge William E. Smith agreed, finding that the evidence showed the defendants lacked the requisite level of control over the plaintiff’s work for her to be considered an employee.

“In the end, ‘while no one factor is dispositive, it is clear, based on the parties’ entire relationship, that a reasonable fact finder could only conclude that’ [the plaintiff] was not an employee of [defendants],” Smith wrote, quoting the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2004 decision in Alberty-Vélez v. Corporación De P.R. Para La Difusión Pública. “[The planitiff] thus cannot sue them under Title VII, and Defendants are entitled to summary judgment.”

Still, Smith found a sufficient showing of both quid pro quo and hostile work environment sexual harassment for the plaintiff’s claims under the Rhode Island Civil Rights Act to proceed, rejecting the defendants’ assertions that those claims were time-barred.

The 28-page decision is McDaniel v. Preserve Property Management Company, LLC, et al.