Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc.
E165277
Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. is a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for hostile work environment sexual harassment under Title VII by holding that conduct can be actionable even without proof of severe psychological injury.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1440436 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. Context triple: [Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, precedentFor, Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc.]
-
A.
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. is a landmark 1928 New York Court of Appeals case, authored by Judge Benjamin Cardozo, that established the modern American doctrine of proximate cause and foreseeability in negligence law.
-
B.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green is a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the key burden-shifting framework for proving employment discrimination under Title VII.
-
C.
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. is a landmark 1916 New York Court of Appeals case that expanded manufacturers’ liability in negligence to consumers, even without privity of contract.
-
D.
Hines v. Davidowitz
Hines v. Davidowitz is a 1941 U.S. Supreme Court case that held federal law preempts conflicting state alien-registration laws under the Supremacy Clause.
-
E.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co. is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the doctrine of disparate impact in employment discrimination law, holding that seemingly neutral job requirements that disproportionately exclude protected groups can violate Title VII.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. Target entity description: Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. is a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for hostile work environment sexual harassment under Title VII by holding that conduct can be actionable even without proof of severe psychological injury.
-
A.
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. is a landmark 1928 New York Court of Appeals case, authored by Judge Benjamin Cardozo, that established the modern American doctrine of proximate cause and foreseeability in negligence law.
-
B.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green is a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the key burden-shifting framework for proving employment discrimination under Title VII.
-
C.
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. is a landmark 1916 New York Court of Appeals case that expanded manufacturers’ liability in negligence to consumers, even without privity of contract.
-
D.
Hines v. Davidowitz
Hines v. Davidowitz is a 1941 U.S. Supreme Court case that held federal law preempts conflicting state alien-registration laws under the Supremacy Clause.
-
E.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co. is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the doctrine of disparate impact in employment discrimination law, holding that seemingly neutral job requirements that disproportionately exclude protected groups can violate Title VII.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Title VII case
ⓘ
United States Supreme Court case ⓘ employment discrimination case ⓘ |
| arguedDate | 1993-10-13 ⓘ |
| citation | 510 U.S. 17 ⓘ |
| clarified | Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson ⓘ |
| clarifiedThat | Title VII comes into play before the harassing conduct leads to a nervous breakdown ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1993-11-09 ⓘ |
| decisionType | unanimous decision ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 92-1168 ⓘ |
| effect | lowered the threshold for proving hostile work environment claims under Title VII ⓘ |
| fullName | Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. self-link ⓘ |
| holding |
A plaintiff need not demonstrate concrete psychological injury to establish a hostile work environment claim under Title VII
ⓘ
A work environment can be hostile or abusive under Title VII even if it does not seriously affect an employee’s psychological well-being ⓘ Courts must look at all the circumstances to determine whether an environment is hostile or abusive ⓘ |
| issue | standard for hostile work environment sexual harassment under Title VII ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | federal question jurisdiction ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| legalArea |
civil rights law
ⓘ
employment law ⓘ sexual harassment law ⓘ |
| legalProvision | Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ⓘ |
| lowerCourt | United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ⓘ |
| opinionAuthor | Sandra Day O’Connor ⓘ |
| opinionType | majority opinion ⓘ |
| page | 17 ⓘ |
| partOf | United States Supreme Court jurisprudence on Title VII ⓘ |
| petitioner | Teresa Harris ⓘ |
| precedentFor | hostile work environment sexual harassment claims under Title VII ⓘ |
| reporter | United States Reports ⓘ |
| respondent | Forklift Systems, Inc. ⓘ |
| reversedOrVacated | judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ⓘ |
| standardAnnounced |
conduct must be both objectively and subjectively hostile or abusive
ⓘ
reasonable person standard for determining whether the environment is hostile or abusive ⓘ totality of the circumstances test for hostile work environment ⓘ |
| testFactor |
frequency of the discriminatory conduct
ⓘ
severity of the discriminatory conduct ⓘ whether the conduct is physically threatening or humiliating or a mere offensive utterance ⓘ whether the conduct unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance ⓘ |
| topic |
hostile work environment
ⓘ
sexual harassment ⓘ workplace discrimination ⓘ |
| volume | 510 ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1993 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. Description of subject: Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. is a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for hostile work environment sexual harassment under Title VII by holding that conduct can be actionable even without proof of severe psychological injury.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.