The exclusive remedy provision in Tennessee workers compensation law prohibits a woman from filing a sexual harassment and hostile worker environment claim under state human rights law because her injury did not involve previously reported harassment, a state appeals court ruled Friday.

Karen Potter was working on the assembly line for YAPP USA Automotive Systems Inc. when an altercation with a co-worker, who spit on her and pushed her, resulted in a compensable injury to several parts of her body, according to documents in Karen Potter v. YAPP USA Automotive Systems Inc., filed in the Court of Appeals of Tennessee in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ms. Potter had two weeks prior to the fight reported an incident of sexual harassment involving the same male co-worker to her supervisor, and filed a subsequent complaint, according to documents. That incident involved the male co-worker inappropriately rubbing against her and making inappropriate sexual comments about her perfume and relations with his wife.

After her injury, in which she received $10,584 in permanent disability benefits and $7,235 for medical expenses, she filed a complaint for damages pursuant to the Tennessee Human Rights Act related to the first incident, according to documents. YAPP filed for summary judgment in trial court, arguing that the state’s exclusive remedy barred such claims and that the earlier incident alone was “insufficient” to establish a hostile work environment, according to documents.

A trial court ruled in favor of the employer, finding insufficient evidence of a hostile work environment on the basis of a single event; under state law “an employee alleging a hostile work environment must show both that the harassing behavior was `severe or pervasive' enough to create an environment that a reasonable person would find objectively hostile or abusive, and that he or she subjectively regarded the environment as abusive," according to documents.

Ms. Potter based her appeal not on the earlier incident but on the latter, arguing that the exclusive remedy defense did not apply and that the altercation was related to the harassment, according to documents.

The appeals court affirmed the trial court’s ruling, dismissing the case, writing that the incident in which she suffered her physical injury did not constitute harassment: “During her deposition, Ms. Potter admitted that the (latter) incident was not sexual in any way and that it began with a discussion about work.”