A federal appeals court has reinstated discrimination and retaliation claims filed by a former bank employee who claimed the bank was negligent in handling a situation in which a customer persistently stalked and harassed her.

Jennifer Christian, an associate with Portland, Oregon-based Umpqua Bank, began to be harassed by a bank customer in late 2013, according to Thursday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in Jennifer Christian FKA Jennifer Havemen v. Umpqua Bank.

The customer’s unsolicited and unwelcome behavior included sending Ms. Christian love notes and flowers, asking personnel at another branch how he could get a date with her, staring at her while she worked, and stalking her at a charity event.

Ms. Christian said her supervisors failed to obtain a no-trespass order against the customer and recommended she hide in the break room when the man appeared. She eventually transferred to another branch where she was given fewer hours to work. Umpqua then closed the customer’s account and told him not to return to the bank.

Ms. Christian resigned her position soon afterward and filed suit in U.S. District Court in Portland, charging gender harassment and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and state law. The district court granted the bank summary judgment dismissing the case.

It was overturned by a unanimous three-judge appeals court panel, which issued two separate rulings in the case.

The district court incorrectly isolated harassing incidents that occurred in February and September 2014, the appeals court said.

“Christian understandably experienced the harassment not as isolated and sporadic incidents but rather as an escalating pattern of behavior that caused her to be afraid in her own workplace. We cannot say that a juror would not find that fear reasonable or the resulting environment hostile,” the ruling said.

The district court also erred in not considering instances in which Ms. Christian did not have direct and personal interactions with the customer such as when he wrote her a letter calling her his soulmate, sent her flowers and watched her in the bank lobby, the ruling said. 

The appeals panel said incidents that do not include verbal communication, physical proximity, or physical or sexual touching must also be considered.

The court also erred in not considering interactions between the customer and third persons, including his repeated visits to the other branch to badger Ms. Christian’s colleagues about how he could get a date with her.

A jury should decide whether the bank’s actions were sufficient and “could find the bank’s response unreasonable because it placed the bulk of the burden on Christian herself,” such as when it suggested she hide in the break room when the customer entered the bank, the ruling said.

“A jury could find the suggestion that a female should be made to hide in her own workplace unreasonable, callous and demeaning,” it said, in reinstating Ms. Christian’s gender discrimination charges and remanding the case.

In a separate opinion, the panel also reinstated her retaliation charge, noting her job duties were reduced when she was transferred, and remanded that claim as well.

Attorneys in the case did not respond to requests for comment.