The Green-eyed Monster at Work
Shakespeare coined the term “green-eyed monster” in his race-and-sex-themed play, The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Did the Bard know that his words would still resonate in the New World’s employment laws four centuries later?
A recent court decision grapples with the issue of spousal jealousy at work. More specifically, if a jealous wife forces her husband to fire his subordinate because the wife doesn’t want him to work closely with her or other women, is that sex discrimination?
Yes and no, according to a federal judge in Pittsburgh, who ruled on this issue late last year. In Sztroin v. Pennwest Industrial Truck, LLC, the plaintiff alleged she was cut off from contact with the president of the company, Mark Gaier, and then fired because Gaier’s wife “did not approve of him working closely with female employees,” especially the plaintiff. The boss’s wife allegedly exhibited her hostility toward the plaintiff in other ways, including an incident in which, bizarrely, she “embraced Plaintiff and firmly pressed her breasts against Plaintiff in a manner that made Plaintiff feel uncomfortable and intimidated.”
Awkward details aside, this complaint required the court to squarely address the question of whether it is sex discrimination to terminate an employee because of spousal jealousy. Judge Nora Barry Fischer surveyed the case law on the issue and concluded that “courts have found spousal jealousy to be a lawful reason to terminate an employee . . . only where the spouse was jealous of a particular individual, not where the spouse was jealous of an entire sex.” In other words, terminating an employee because the boss’s green-eyed wife perceived her to be flirtatious, irresistible or promiscuous is not discrimination based on gender but rather on particularized sentiments toward that one employee. However, if the spousal jealousy is so broad that it restricts the boss from working closely with any female, as alleged in the Sztroin case, then that is discrimination based on gender, and can support a sex discrimination claim, Judge Fischer ruled.
The lesson from this case? Try to get your jealous spouse to focus suspicion and hostile hugging on just one co-worker.