Role Reversal

Man wins office sex suit

Sexual harassment has become in the past few years a routine basis for lawsuits brought by women against male bosses. But a male employee suing a female supervisor on the same grounds is like the proverbial man biting the proverbial dog. David Huebschen, 33, an employee of the Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services, is apparently the first male to win such a suit. Last week a federal jury in Madison said that he is due $196,500 in damages, probably the largest amount ever awarded an individual in a sexual harassment case. The sum is to be paid by the state on behalf of Huebschen's former superior, Jacquelyn Rader, 37, and Rader's boss, Bernard Stumbras.

The jury of five women and one man believed Huebschen's contention that Rader demoted him from his job as a disability-insurance supervisor because he refused her sexual advances. Stumbras, an administrator of the state agency, was held liable for not remedying Huebschen's harassment complaints. The verdict will probably be appealed.

Huebschen admitted he did not always feel harassed by Rader's overtures. After an office party in September 1979, the couple met in a motel room but did not actually consummate their tryst, Huebschen says, because he was "too tense." In November, he testified, he told Rader that "the sexual stuff has to stop." Rader soon sent him packing to his old, lower-paying job as a claims adjudicator.

Rader, who like Huebschen is married, denied any affair. Rather, she claimed, it was he who pestered her--unsuccessfully--for dates. Rader said she demoted Huebschen in 1979 because he was an inept supervisor. Yet just three months earlier she had praised his work in a written critique, and a month before that she had recommended him for a pay raise.

The record amount awarded Huebschen was a surprise. "Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem for women, not for men, yet you don't see this kind of award to women," noted Isabelle Pinzler, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project. Said Detroit Attorney Allyn Ravitz: "Male or female, every big verdict has got to help."

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