PA. STATE POLICE Dispatcher: Abuse led me to quit

The woman's case reached the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pennsylvania State Police dispatcher Nancy Drew Suders says she had no choice but to quit her job after enduring months of verbal abuse and harassment from male co-workers.
She wasn't thinking about the finer points of employment law when she walked out, although she quickly learned that getting fired would have made her sexual harassment lawsuit much easier to pursue.
Suders' case came to the Supreme Court on Wednesday as an example of the problems that on-the-job harassment can cause for employees, employers and a legal system struggling to draw rules fair to all sides.
Day in and day out, Suders claims, her male co-workers at the state police barracks outside McConnellsburg taunted her with lewd talk. Suders says one officer repeatedly grabbed his crotch in front of her and others told dirty jokes.
"She was subjected to horrendous conditions at work," and got nowhere when she sought help within the police agency, her lawyer, Donald Bailey, told the court.
Suders' supervisors deny any harassment. They claim she was disorganized, often late and overwhelmed by her duties. They note she never told anyone about the reported abuse until just before she quit, and that she left the job in 1998 after being accused of stealing results of a computer test that her supervisors told her she had failed. She was not charged.
The Supreme Court has said employers can be on the hook for lawsuits over sexual harassment that results in some clear punishment for the employee, such as getting fired or demoted. The court also has said that an employer can avoid such suits by showing a sincere and effective policy aimed at preventing and responding to harassment.
Suders wants the justices to conclude that in cases like hers, quitting is really the same thing as getting fired. She shouldn't be penalized because she didn't wait around for further abuse or punishment, her supporters argue.