Quid Pro...*

Nan Shi filed a complain against Yahoo executive, Maria Zhang, accusing her of coercing Shi into sex, and threatening to fire her. Zhang's defense is that Shi is an underperformer and fabricated the entire story. 

Two types of sexual harassment: "hostile work environment" and "quid pro quo".

Hostile work environment is far more popular in that people often believe their workplace is hostile because their boss is a jerk, or he "has it out for them." But, as the Supreme Court has famously said, discrimination laws are not a "general civility code for the American workplace."

Quid pro quo "this for that" harassment is rarer, but potentially easier to prove. Simply put, a plaintiff must prove that a boss first made unwanted sexual advances or engaged in other unwanted sexual conduct.

The plaintiff must also prove either that job benefits were conditioned on acceptance of those sexual advances or that employment decisions were based on his/her acceptance or rejection of the boss' conduct.

If Shi fabricated the allegations, then that would be a bold and brassy lie. But it wouldn't be unique. Defendants in these cases frequently claim the plaintiff conjured up harassment just to save their job after substandard performance reviews. It becomes a high-stakes chicken-and-egg game: Were the negative reviews a conspiracy to cover up the harassment? Or was the harassment made up to cast doubt on the reports of underperformance? Only time, and a jury, will tell. And they will.

Just a thought.