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This Thursday a California State Court of Appeals dismissed an attempt by the state Department of Health Services to defend itself from an employee's sexual harassment suit on the grounds that it either did not know about, or took action to correct, the harassment she endured from her supervisor. While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that employers can avoid liability under federal sexual harassment laws by showing that they were not made unaware of the harassment or sought to solve the problem, the California court ruled that employers do not have this protection under state laws. While some feel that it is unfair to impose liability in cases where employees did not report the harassment, the lawyer for the plaintiff points out that oftentimes employees do not use internal channels in cases involving their supervisors for fear of losing their jobs.