Blakey v. Continental Airlines, Inc.

Blakey v. Continental Airlines
Court	United States District Court for the District of New Jersey
Full case name	Captain Tammy S. BLAKEY, Plaintiff, v. CONTINENTAL AIRLINES, INC., a foreign corporation, Defendant.
Decided	January 30, 1998
Citation	992 F.Supp. 731 (1998)
Court membership
Judge sitting	William G. Bassler

Blakey v. Continental Airlines
Court	New Jersey Supreme Court
Full case name	Tammy S. BLAKEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CONTINENTAL AIRLINES, INC., a Foreign Corporation, Kaye V. Riggs, Joe Vacca, Mark J. Farrow, Donald Jensen, Dave Orozco and Thomas N. Stivala, Defendants-Respondents, and ABC Corporations (1-100), Steve Abdu and John Does (1-100), Defendants.
Decided	June 1, 2000
Citation	164 N.J. 38, 751 A.2d 538 (2000)
Court membership
Judges sitting	Chief Justice Poritz and Justices O'Hern, Stein, Coleman, Long, Verniero and LaVecchia
Case opinions
Majority: O'Hern (unanimous)

Blakey v. Continental Airlines is the name of both a United States District Court case and a New Jersey Supreme court case concerning whether an employer must be held liable for harassment that can potentially occur on internal "internet bulletin boards" (which could be manifested as anything from a company forum to a mailing list). While the case began as a sexual harassment lawsuit, the unusual circumstances involving the piloting forum where much of the harassment took place forced the courts to explore important questions concerning liabilities for content posted in a decentralized, electronic manner as is frequently the case on the internet.

Background and Facts

Captain Tammy S. Blakey was an airline pilot working for Continental Airlines. Shortly after becoming the first female pilot to fly the Airbus A300 aircraft (and only one of five pilots among Continental's staff qualified to pilot the aircraft) she complained of a hostile work environment and sexual harrassment based on the content of an internet message board used by pilots as part of a broader system used to manage piloting assignments. Other instances of harassment were documented by her as well.

U.S. District Court Case

The nature of this opinion centers around whether or not Blakey's claims of sexual harassment in particular were warranted and that Continental Airlines was responsible for mitigating such harassment. The circumstances of the case were complicated by the fact that much of the psychological distress Blakey experienced was magnified by problems in her personal life. However, with the evidence at hand, it soon became abundantly clear to the jury that regardless of the permissibility of online content in making her case, other forms of harassment such as leaving pornographic images in her cockpit and physical messages of a threatening nature painted a clear picture of harassment based on gender discrimination.

New Jersey Supreme Court Case

The New Jersey Supreme Court explored the case from a more technical and jurisdictional perspective to clarify the precedent this case will set for future litigation of its kind.

The Workplace Online

First, the court considered whether or not a computer forum (or "bulletin board") can be reasonably considered an extension of the workplace such that Continental Airlines would be liable for any harassment that occurred in that extension. Much of the reasoning centered around the idea of whether or not the bulletin board was an integral part of the workplace much like a physical wood-and-cork bulletin board in a company break-room would be. Moreover, an analogy to harassment that occurs physically outside the workplace (such as at a bar frequented by workers of the company) was used to justify how the bulletin board on the internet could similarly create a hostile environment for employees even if it wasn't strictly within the company's literal jurisdiction.

Personal Jurisdiction

Second, the court considered whether or not employees of the airline can be reasonably subject to the personal jurisdiction of the State of New Jersey even though employees would view and publish messages from disparate locations across the country. The court reasoned that because Blakey was based out of the Newark hub of Continental Airlines, most of the distress in fact occurred within New Jersey's jurisdiction even though the bulletin board was accessible anywhere and she herself flew all over the country regularly as a matter of course. Granted, matters were complicated slightly by the fact that Blakey had actually taken a leave of absence to Houston around the time of filing her lawsuit, but this appears irrelevant to the fact that the harassment occurred while she piloted an Airbus A300 regularly out of Newark.

Implications

Crucially, this case is the first to set a clear precedent for how courts must deal with harassment in cyberspace. It clearly illustrates that the potential for employer liability existed even in the context of unmonitored blogging, and this can certainly be extended to other types of liability in other online harassment situations. Further, it demonstrates that employer liability extends beyond even employer-provided blogs as long as they are considered sufficiently integral to the workplace (since technically a third party operated the bulletin board in this case). With that said, the court acknowledged that clear privacy concerns arise from such ruling. The court's decision emphasizes that the intent is not to make companies monitor all employee communications, but rather to make clear that companies must take all necessary steps to stop harassment if the company has reason to believe it is occurring, whether it is online or in person.