Ninth Circuit To Hear Title VII Punitive Damages Case En Banc

Keywords: Ninth Circuit, Title VII, Punitive Damages Case, ASARCO

It's not often that federal courts of appeals agree to decide punitive damages cases en banc, so Arizona v. ASARCO, which the Ninth Circuit will rehear en banc on June 18, strikes us as worthy of attention.  In fact, because the case potentially implicates a number of very important issues in the law of punitive damages, my colleagues and I plan to do a series of posts on the case.

So as not to bury the lead, let me say at the outset that I think that the parties and the original Ninth Circuit panel are looking at the issues in this case through the wrong lens.  I'll explain what I mean later in the post.

The facts of the case are fairly straightforward.  Angela Aguilar worked in a variety of capacities at an ASARCO mining facility for a few months in 2006.  She alleges that during her time there, she was subjected to a sexually hostile environment as a result of three unrelated series of