Thompson v. Louisville Metro Government

Dawn Thompson, an employee with the Louisville Department of Corrections, was approached by her immediate supervisor, Kevin Sidebottom, who wanted to begin a romantic relationship with her. After she rebuffed his advances, Thompson began to hear rumors that the two were romantically involved, which she denied. She was later denied a promotion to captain. Instead, the two promotions went to a woman who had the highest test scores and a man with lower test scores than Thompson. Thompson claimed that Sidebottom denied her promotion because she declined his romantic advances two years earlier. However, a higher-ranking officer claimed that he made the promotion decisions alone and declined to promote Thompson because of a recent EEO complaint against her, which was eventually dropped. Two months later, Thompson received a promotion to captain despite again hearing rumors about her romantic involvement with Sidebottom in addition to rumors that he had tried to prevent her promotion. After Thompson filed an EEO complaint, the department found that Sidebottom did not retaliate against her because he did not make the promotion decision. Thompson then sued the Louisville government and Sidebottom individually and in his professional capacity for sexual harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation in violation of the Kentucky Civil Rights Act, but the Circuit Court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that she was unable to demonstrate that the legitimate reason for her initial failure to be promoted was not the real reason she was denied, and in addition, failed to show that she suffered an adverse employment action.