🚀 go-pugleaf

fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes:
[...]
>A Doctor made issues of Playboy and Penthouse available to adult
>patients in his waiting room (with precautions to prevent minors from
>seeing them).  A nurse in his employ noticed an upswing in the number
>of offensive comments and the like from patients.  When the doctor
>refused to stop making the magazines available she filed suit claiming
>that the distribution of the magazines in the office created an
>environment in which she was much more likely to be sexually harrassed
>even though the doctor did not in any way harrass her.  She won the
>suit and the doctor was forced to stop making them available.
[...]

The case you sight (site?) is certainly a tough one. [Anyone have a
reference?]

I think the key to the case is that the nurse was able to make a
reasonable case that she was actually being harassed (by the some of
the patients) and that, with the removal of the magazines, this
harassment would likely stop. The explicitness of the material was not
(directly) relevent; if the magazines in question had been Readers'
Digest and Highlights, the case would have been settled the same.

Also, the freedom to read in a doctor's office is not considered
important. In contrast, the freedom to read at a university or library
is of the highest importance.

(In a perfect world, the harassing customers and no one else would be
accountable for their actions.)

- Carl
-- 
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- But I speak for myself.