In 2014, Diane Straka formed an accounting corporation with three male colleagues. Straka and her partners each held a 25 percent share of the firm and served as the directors and officers. One of Straka’s colleagues brought two employees of his former firm, Sidney Weiss and Thomas Urbanek, with him to serve as non-shareholder, senior accountants. Shortly after moving into the new office in 2015, Straka met Urbanek and introduced herself. Knowing that she was a partner of the corporation, Urbanek said, “Oh, are you the one who makes the coffee?” Soon thereafter, he told her to look at a cartoon he posted on his office door that was demeaning to women. Straka received complaints that Urbanek made unsolicited, demeaning remarks to other female employees as well. Urbanek continued to demean and sexually harass Straka and other women at the firm, so Straka brought the issue to the attention of her partners. The partners confronted Urbanek, but he refused to change his behavior. From that point on, Straka’s complaints concerning Urbanek were largely ignored.

Straka alleged that by the end of April 2016, she could no longer work “in such a hostile, inflammatory and unprofessional environment” and informed her partners that she wanted to withdraw from the firm. By July 2016, Straka was frozen out of the firm’s books and excluded from all personnel decisions. Straka sued the firm, seeking a judicial dissolution of the firm due to being an oppressed minority shareholder. What do you think of Straka’s claim? How do our changing understandings of topics such as sexual harassment affect the business world? How did the court rule?