A manager of a startup company sought to terminate the employment of the company's human resources manager due to professional disagreements. In an attempt to smooth things out between them, the two held a personal conversation in which the manager shared his sexual orientation with the employee, as part of a personal conversation.
The National Labor Court held that the manager did not sexually harass the employee and is not liable for damages. The Israeli Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law is designed to protect employees from harm and exploitation but a categorical prohibition on consensual personal-intimate discourse between employees, even when it deals with sexuality, should not be derived from it. In examining the existence of sexual harassment while exploiting authority relations, the totality of the circumstances must be considered, including power gaps, who initiated the interaction and the degree of mutuality in the discourse. Here, it was the employee who initiated, coaxed and acted to create the intimate discourse. The manager's sharing regarding his sexual orientation pertained solely to his past did not convey a sexual message towards the employee and was done as part of a mutual intimate conversation that does not amount to exploitation of authority or sexual harassment. Therefore, no sexual harassment took place.