Papp v. Cuyahoga Cty.

• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals
• Decided: June 4, 2026
• Docket: 115346
• Status: Published

Opinion

[Cite as Papp v. Cuyahoga Cty., 2026-Ohio-2078.]

COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO

EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA

ERIKA PAPP, :

Plaintiff-Appellant, : No. 115346 v. :

CUYAHOGA COUNTY, :

Defendant-Appellee. :

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: June 4, 2026

Civil Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CV-20-934156

Appearances:

Dworken & Bernstein Co., L.P.A., and Patrick J. Perotti; The Buckeye Law Group and John P. Colan; The Robenalt Law Firm and Thomas D. Robenalt, for appellant.

Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Matthew D. Greenwell and Jake A. Elliott, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellee.

SEAN C. GALLAGHER, J.:

Erika Papp, a correction officer employed in the Cuyahoga County

Corrections Center (“Jail”), appeals the granting of summary judgment in favor of Cuyahoga County (“County”) on her claims that the County did not adequately

prevent the male inmates in the jail from sexually harassing her and other female

correction officers between late 2017 and 2020. For the following reasons, we

affirm.

At the end of 2017, the County permitted cross-gender supervision of

inmates as a result of an Ohio Civil Rights Commission Conciliation Agreement.

That agreement resolved grievances and discrimination charges filed by employees

challenging the Jail’s then in place, same-gender supervision policy. Papp was the

first female correction officer to pursue an assignment supervising male inmates.

Papp claims that she was subjected to sexual harassment and exhibitionism on

several occasions, aggravated in part by the Jail removing sexual harassment as a

standalone infraction for inmate misconduct from the Inmate Handbook, which

occurred immediately before implementing the cross-gender supervision policy.

She also alleges that the County “refused to prevent, discipline, investigate, or bring

charges against the inmates” for sexual harassment and public indecency. Papp was

unable to provide dates of when the alleged misconduct occurred specific to her but

is “100 percent pretty sure something is happening every day” to her and other

female correction officers.

As an example of the misconduct she endured, Papp recounted a time

that an inmate was masturbating behind her when she was supervising in the

medical area. She reported that inmate to her supervisors, and the inmate was

punished based on the investigation initiated through the Jail’s disciplinary system. Deposition transcript filed Nov. 29, 2023, 90:19-91:7. There is no evidence that

Papp encountered that inmate again. Id. Papp also generically claimed her

supervisors prevented her from filing some combination reports, which are the

documents correction officers use to initiate disciplinary procedures against

inmates. For example, she remembered one instance when her supervisor crumpled

up a combination report she intended to file. Papp, however, could not recall what

prompted the report or whether the misconduct was related to sexual harassment.

Id. at 69:13-17. In another instance, her direct supervisor would not accept a report

in which she claimed an inmate “tried” to hug her. The supervisor rationalized that

since no contact or touching took place, the attempt was not an infraction.

Papp did not pursue that decision further despite her own evidence

demonstrating a correction officer’s ability to elevate a report of misconduct through

the chain of command if the immediate supervisor disagrees with the classification

of the alleged misconduct as an infraction. As Papp highlighted, although for

different reasons, there was evidence in the record of another female correction

officer who witnessed an inmate masturbating in his cell and her immediate

supervisor declined to permit the combination report from being filed because the

inmate was in his cell. The complaint was brought to a superior’s attention, and an

investigation ensued based on the superior’s position that the inmate’s conduct

constituted a serious infraction — in effect overruling the immediate supervisor’s

initial decision. She also claimed that several inmates would direct lewd and

degrading comments at her. Papp conceded that the female inmates used similar

abusive language, but in light of the population and gender difference, the male

inmates’ language was more prevalent and degrading. Papp could not recall

reporting those instances to supervisors. For the final allegations, Papp maintained

that an ex-inmate sent a letter to the Jail addressed to her personally, although she

never read its contents, and one inmate made her feel concerned for her physical

safety because he said he would see her once he was released.

Papp introduced several affidavits of other male and female

correction officers who attested to witnessing or being subjected to similar conduct,

including several incidents in which inmates would intentionally touch themselves

in sexually suggestive manners or masturbate at or in front of female correction

officers. Although the affidavits were included in the record, Papp was unaware of

the specified instances of misconduct until her deposition, taken during discovery

in the underlying case. In other words, misconduct directed towards others did not

impact the terms of her employment.

In addition to the personal accounts, Papp identified nearly 100 out

of the over 48,000 combination reports issued between 2017 and 2020 in which

correction officers initiated disciplinary proceedings against inmates for all types of

infractions, only a subset of which included sexual harassment or exhibitionism that

were investigated and resolved through disciplinary measures against the offending inmates.1 For example, in response to one inmate shouting a sexually charged,

derogatory comment to a female correction officer, the supervisor approved a three-

day isolation period as punishment for the infraction. In response to another inmate

aggressively quizzing a female correction officer about her marital status and

refusing to step back on request, the supervisor authorized a six-day isolation

period. The exhibitionist behavior was generally penalized harsher, with the

infraction being elevated for “major/serious” discipline and the offender being

moved to a specialized floor supervised by male correction officers or placed in

administrative detention pending the investigation. That detention was some form

of isolation in the inmate’s cell or on another floor with limited access. There is no

evidence in this record explaining the results of those investigations, and

importantly, there is no information as to whether any of the inmates punished

through the filing of the combination report continued harassing female correction

officers after completion of any penalty imposed for the original infraction.

The combination reports highlighted by Papp and attached to her

motion to certify the class generally followed the above trend: that female correction

officers reported instances of harassment or exhibitionism and that conduct was

punished by supervisors or referred for serious discipline. In other words, Papp’s

evidence demonstrates that the County routinely investigated reports filed by female

1 Although Papp claims the identified reports are a mere sampling of the relevant

ones, it does not appear that all of the relevant combination reports are included in this record or that a complete accounting of the relevant reports was provided to the trial court for consideration. correction officers and meted out punishments for the alleged misconduct — which

included sexual harassment. This latter fact twofold demonstrates that the alleged

policy change, removing sexual harassment as a standalone infraction, was

inconsequential from a practical perspective and that the policy changes merely

redefined inappropriate behavior for specificity instead of lumping all manner of

infractions under the vague umbrella of sexual harassment. Papp has not argued

otherwise.

In support of her contention that the County failed to take immediate

remedial steps to deter misconduct, Papp claims that the Jail’s disciplinary

procedures and resulting sanctions were insufficient. She claims that in addition to

the internal disciplinary system, the County was required to refer inmates for

prosecution to deter future misconduct by other inmates because, in her opinion,

isolation or benefit restrictions imposed on individual inmates was not a sufficient

deterrent to others. Ohio has proscribed public indecency. Under R.C. 2907.09,

exposing one’s private parts to nonhousehold members is a misdemeanor of the

fourth degree punishable by a jail sentence up to 30 days or a five-year term of

community-control sanctions. There is no identified crime related to Papp’s sexual-

harassment claims based on abusive language. Thus, Papp’s argument pertaining

to the County’s failure to deter is essentially limited to the exhibitionist behavior.

The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the County. In

two assignments of error, Papp challenges the judgment entered on both the hostile-

work-environment and intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claims. A plaintiff who alleges a hostile-work-environment claim must

generally demonstrate that (1) they belong to a protected class; (2) they were

subjected to unwelcome harassment; (3) the harassment was based on sex; (4) the

harassment affected a term, condition, or privilege of employment; and (5) the

employer knew or should have known of the harassment and did not take prompt

remedial action. Reine v. Honeywell Internatl. Inc., 362 F.Appx. 395, 397 (5th Cir.

2010), citing LeMaire v. La. Dept. of Transp. & Dev., 480 F.3d 383, 393 (5th Cir.

2007). A plaintiff seeking recovery for infliction of emotional distress must

demonstrate “(1) the defendant intended to cause, or knew or should have known

that his actions would result in serious emotional distress; (2) the defendant's

conduct was so extreme and outrageous that it went beyond all possible bounds of

decency and can be considered completely intolerable in a civilized community; (3)

the defendant’s actions proximately caused psychological injury to the plaintiff; and

(4) the plaintiff suffered serious mental anguish of a nature no reasonable person

could be expected to endure.” Ashcroft v. Mt. Sinai Med. Ctr., 68 Ohio App.3d 359,

366 (8th Dist. 1990). In other words, for the purposes of the latter claim, Papp must

demonstrate that the County’s inaction was “so extreme and outrageous that it went

beyond all possible bounds of decency.” The focus there is not on the inmates’

misconduct, but the County’s alleged failure to implement reasonable and prompt

remedial measures. The failure to demonstrate the sexual-harassment claim

necessarily disposes of the claim for intentional infliction of emotion distress. Although Papp filed her complaint individually and on behalf of a

putative class of other female correction officers, the trial court implicitly denied

class certification by granting judgment in the County’s favor on Papp’s individual

claims, which were based on the argument that Papp failed to assert allegations

pertaining to all elements of her hostile-work-environment claim. If Papp is unable

to bring forward allegations of a hostile work environment individually, she cannot

fulfill her role in adequately representing the putative class under Civ.R. 23. See E.

Texas Motor Freight Sys. v. Rodriguez, 431 U.S. 395, 403 (1977). That conclusion

also resolves her individual claims. Thus, the focus in this appeal is solely on Papp’s

individual claims for hostile work environment and intentional infliction of

emotional distress. See Brunet v. Columbus, 1 F.3d 390, 399 (6th Cir. 1993) (if the

named plaintiff's claim is disposed of before the class certification is granted, final

judgment is warranted). The putative class is not a party to this action. See

Gembarski v. PartsSource, Inc., 2019-Ohio-3231, ¶ 29.

As a result, and contrary to the significant portion of Papp’s brief, the

allegations pertaining to other female correction officers or the general happenings

in the Jail are irrelevant at this stage. The sole issue is whether there is evidence

that Papp herself was subjected to a hostile work environment, or at the least, aware

of the specific misconduct directed at the other female correction officers that

impacted her employment, and whether the County failed to take reasonable

measures against the inmates responsible for the harassment. See, e.g., Freitag v.

Ayers, 468 F.3d 528, 533 (9th Cir.2006) (involving allegations in which two specific inmates continued their abusive behavior based on the failure of prison officials to

timely punish or deter their individual conduct).

Although there is ample evidence of the inmates’ misconduct directed

toward the female correction officers in general, this is not a typical case of

workplace harassment where misconduct alone demonstrates a basis for the claim.

Papp’s general focus is on workplace hostile-work-environment cases, but that focus

ignores the unique aspect of this case related to the harassers being third-party

inmates the County is required to house and supervise. This is not a typical hostile-

work-environment case involving an employee or invitee harasser, two types of

persons an employer can discipline or exclude from the premises. Even within this

unique area, it must be recognized that this is not a case in which inmates are alleged

to have organized to specifically target female staff without recourse from the Jail

officials. See, e.g., Brown v. Cook Cty., 332 F.R.D. 229, 234 (N.D.Ill. 2019)

(plaintiffs alleged that a prison gang called “Savage Life” orchestrated the attacks on

jail personnel without an immediate response by the prison officials). Further, the

County is not accused of vicarious liability for the acts of its employees encouraging

the behavior. See, e.g., Beckford v. Dept. of Corr., 605 F.3d 951, 955 (11th Cir. 2010)

(male security officer left female staff alone in an all-male “close management dorm”

and the male supervising Lieutenant ignored the female staffer’s plea for help after

the inmates began ejaculating on windows saying “you were looking for it. I saw

you, you were looking for it. You were asking for it” and prison management sent a

memorandum to female staff discouraging them from reporting misconduct). Instead, the County is claimed to have failed to take appropriate

corrective action to prevent third parties, the jailed inmates, from sexually harassing

Papp. The County, unlike a typical employer, is required to house and supervise the

alleged harassers. The inmates cannot be fired or expelled from the premises as

would an employee or business invitee. This has led courts to observe that “[by]

choosing to work in a prison, corrections personnel have acknowledged and

accepted the probability that they will face inappropriate and socially deviant

behavior” on some level. Slayton v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Servs., 206 F.3d 669, 677

(6th Cir. 2000), citing Powell v. Morris, 37 F.Supp.2d 1011, 1017 (S.D.Ohio 1999)

(“Anyone who works at a prison . . . must expect some off-color interactions. . . . It

is absurd to expect that a prison can actually stop all obscene comments and conduct

from its inmates — people who have been deemed unsuited to live in normal

society.”). “Prisoners, by definition, have breached prevailing societal norms in

fundamentally corrosive ways.” Id. It is for this reason that “[c]ourts have

repeatedly declined to impose sexual harassment liability upon correctional

institutions for the sexually offensive conduct of inmates, as long as the defendant

institution took proper preventive and remedial steps with regard to inmate

behavior.” Powell at 1017.

The inmate’s conduct is not being defended or excused by the County,

or this panel for that matter. The primary focus of the County’s defense is on one

element of a hostile-work-environment claim — whether the employer (here the

County), took immediate and appropriate corrective action in response to the individual misconduct of a transient population of offenders. Papp’s claims

incorrectly focus on the conduct of several inmates as the embodiment of one claim,

but that overlooks the basic fact that the County is required to house and supervise

the transient population of inmates regardless of their behavior. See, e.g., Slayton,

206 F.3d at 677. Papp’s allegations must be reviewed through this lens, which

includes the Jail disciplinary process in place to punish an individual inmate’s

misconduct.

Even when viewing the facts most favorably to Papp, see Civ.R. 56(C),

she has not established any genuine issues as to material facts relating to all

elements of her claims. Papp’s individual claims hinge on demonstrating issues of

material fact as to whether the County implemented immediate and reasonable

remedial measures to deter and prevent the third-party harassment by the inmates.

The evidence presented by Papp demonstrated that when she was confronted with

instances of sexual harassment, indecent exposure, or other exhibitionist behavior,

the inmate was issued an infraction and punished or the matter elevated for an

investigation into a “serious” or “major” infraction. There is no evidence that Papp

was required to, or indeed did, supervise any offending inmate again following a

period of inaction by Jail officials. In fact, there is little focus on the internal

disciplinary system altogether. There is no argument or discussion present

regarding whether the discipline was ineffective as to the individual inmate

punished for a transgression. For example, we have not been provided any arguments or information regarding internal recidivism rates, the primary metric

for evaluating the effectiveness of a deterrent.

Instead of addressing the disciplinary system in place, Papp shifts her

focus and instead argues that the Jail officials’ failure to refer inmate sexual

harassment or exhibitionism to the county prosecutor for misdemeanor, public

indecency charges was required as a remedial measure. This argument largely

overlooks the disciplinary process in place and “the difficulties that prison officials

encounter in controlling inmate conduct.” Beckford, 605 F.3d 951, at 959. Contrary

to Papp’s broad argument, the law “does not require . . . that prisons prevent all

manner of harassment at all cost and without regard to important penological

interests.” Id. “[T]here are practical and constitutional limits on what prisons can

do to protect staff.” Id. We are not the first court to wrestle with this concern;

however, we must consider the “practical and constitutional limits” on what can be

done to protect staff. Id. “Prisons cannot, for example, eject unruly inmates like

businesses can eject rude customers.” Id.

Papp insisted in her appellate briefing and during oral argument that

the only acceptable method for the County to curb individual behavior and avoid

legal responsibility for the third-party’s conduct was to refer each instance of

exhibitionism for prosecution. Papp has since disavowed that stance and for good

reason. She has not identified any legal requirement in Ohio that an institution must

initiate inmate prosecutions to avoid liability when administrative disciplinary

systems are in place. Prosecutions may well affect inmate behavior, but they are not an immediate required response to inmate misconduct. The internal disciplinary

system can be instituted immediately. But importantly, this argument suffers from

the deficiency noted above, that Papp has not demonstrated the internal disciplinary

system to be an ineffective deterrent because she has not produced any evidence of

repeat offenders left to harass her a second time following the prison’s

implementation of its chosen deterrent.

In this case, there is undisputed evidence presented by both sides

demonstrating that the County operated an internal disciplinary system that, even

if overwhelmed by the sheer number of infractions yearly issued, was an immediate

and reasonable mechanism of deterrence to individual inmates. See, e.g., Luna v.

California Dept. of Corr. & Rehab., 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 9777, *2 (9th Cir. Apr. 23,

2024), citing Swenson v. Potter, 271 F.3d 1184, 1193 (9th Cir. 2001) (“The most

significant immediate measure an employer can take in response to a sexual

harassment complaint is to launch a prompt investigation to determine whether the

complaint is justified.”). As to Papp’s individual allegations, there is no evidence

demonstrating that Papp was forced to supervise an offending inmate after she

initiated disciplinary process for that inmate. To this end, Papp also has not

introduced any evidence of repeat harassment being permitted unchecked by Jail

officials to support her claims that the County failed to take reasonable measures.

See, e.g., Freitag, 468 F.3d at 533 (finding that the evidence establishing that two

inmates repeatedly masturbated in front of the female correction officer without any

punishment or sanctions demonstrated the prison’s potential liability for enabling sexual harassment). Nor has Papp included any allegations of other Jail employees

encouraging or inducing the harassment of female correction officers. See, e.g.,

Davis v. Vermont, 868 F.Supp.2d 313, 321 (D.Vt. 2012) (finding that the allegation

that the plaintiff was harassed by inmates based on information only available to

other employees demonstrated a viable claim).

Although there is ample evidence of inmate misconduct, the sole

measure Papp claims to have not been enforced by the Jail officials relates to

referring criminal charges for the public indecency encountered, which only

addresses one aspect of the sexual-harassment claims. Although that is one avenue

to demonstrate the County’s attempt to remediate the exhibitionist behavior, Papp

has not demonstrated that the law requires it along with the full panoply of

alternative disciplinary measures that Papp could immediately avail herself of to

terminate or punish the individual misconduct. On this point, Papp is conspicuously

silent in this appeal — she fails to discuss or dispel the impact of the Jail’s internal

disciplinary process in general beyond claiming that it does not deter a transient

group of individuals as a whole.

In light of the arguments discussed in this appeal and the evidence

presented below, there are no genuine issues of material fact on the remedial

element of the hostile-work-environment claim. The judgment in favor of the

County is affirmed.

It is ordered that appellee recover from appellant costs herein taxed.

The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal. It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the

common pleas court to carry this judgment into execution.

A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule

27 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.

______________________ SEAN C. GALLAGHER, JUDGE

MICHELLE J. SHEEHAN, A.J., and KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, J., CONCUR