Last summer, in the case of Gordan v. Cummings (Docket #Cum- 99-254, April 19,2000), a panel of the Law Court voted 3-2 that the Maine Human Rights Act makes supervisors personally liable for employment discrimination. It based that determination primarily on this same language. On July 25, 2000, the Law Court withdrew that opinion and replaced it with one that did not consider the question of personal liability for supervisory employees.

The Gordan decisions have created uncertainty for the commission and for employers and employees. This bill seeks to resolve that uncertainty by making it clear that employers are the proper parties to hold accountable for employment discrimination, and that a person other than the employer is not personally liable for discrimination. It does so by removing the part of the definition in question and establishing employer responsibility through a new section that eliminates any ambiguity from the statute. This new section implements the rationale of the federal courts in interpreting the analogous federal statutes by providing that an employer is liable for the actions of the employer's agents or persons acting in the employer's interest under established principles of the law of agency and respondeat superior.