Hughes

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 1471 [EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 1472 [EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 1473 [EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 1474 OPINION Civil Code section 51.9 1 prohibits sexual harassment against a plaintiff by a person engaged in a designated "business, service, or professional relationship," including a trustee. (§ 51.9, subd. (a)(1)(C).) We hold that the interpretation definition of sexual harassment for purposes of section 51.9 is consistent with that applied under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA; Gov. Code, § 12900 et seq.) and title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). Plaintiff in this action is Suzan Hughes, a former wife of Mark Hughes, 2 the founder of Herbalife, who died in 2000. Suzan…

I respectfully dissent. Imagine this: three women, mother, daughter, and granddaughter, work at an art school. Two art students eager (as art students will be) to prove a point make an obscene drawing of school students, faculty, staff — including one of the women, the grandmother — engaged in sexual acts. The drawing is displayed in the school art gallery, where none of the women work, but they learn of it, and two of them, the daughter and granddaughter, go to the gallery to see it. The point the young artists want to make is that representational art can evoke a response, and indeed it does. All three women are very upset. However, their supervisors express sympathy and regret and encourage them to register a formal objection, and the whole school, up to and including the president, engages in formal and informal debate about the issue. The students take the drawing down after about 24 hours — one of them even apologizes. Is that conduct severe enough to create a workplace which is "permeated with `discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult . . .'. . . that is `sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive…

Civil Code section 51.9 [1] prohibits sexual harassment against a plaintiff by a person engaged in a designated "business, service, or professional relationship," including a trustee. We hold that the interpretation definition of sexual harassment for purposes of section 51.9 is consistent with that applied under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).

Plaintiff in this action is Suzan Hughes, a former wife of Mark Hughes, [2] the founder of Herbalife, who died in 2000. Suzan sued defendant Christopher Pair, one of three trustees of Mark's estate, alleging sexual harassment under section 51.9 and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The trial court granted Pair's motion for summary judgment. We affirm the judgment.

Suzan was Mark's third wife. They had a son, Alex, who was Mark's only child. Their marriage ended with a contentious dissolution and settlement in 1998. Mark died at the age of 44 in 2000, leaving an estate valued at $400 million. The estate was in the form of a trust. Alex was 14 years old at the time of this litigation.

After the marital dissolution, Mark amended…