Maine’s high court on Thursday unanimously rejected an appeal by a former Androscoggin County Jail guard on a portion of her lawsuit against that county that a lower court judge had dismissed before trial.

Lisa Levesque of Buckfield filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Androscoggin County after she had worked at the jail for several years, then resigned in 2009. She claimed in her suit: gender discrimination; constructive discharge or coerced resignation; and retaliation for opposing the proposed transfer to a day shift of a supervising officer who had been accused of sexual harassment and whom Levesque had implicated during an internal investigation by writing a lengthy testimonial statement.

A judge dismissed the first two claims, granting the county’s motion for summary judgment on those counts.

The third claim, retaliation, was the subject of a four-day trial last fall in which the jury sided with the county.

Levesque’s attorney, Guy Loranger, argued before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court last month that the trial judge shouldn’t have granted the county’s motion for summary judgment on Levesque’s constructive discharge claim, meaning she was forced to resign. He said that the standard the court should consider is whether a “reasonable person faced with such unpleasant conditions would be compelled to resign” from her job, as Levesque eventually did.

But Justice Jon D. Levy, writing for the high court, said : “We conclude that Levesque’s constructive discharge claim must fail as a matter of law because neither Maine nor federal law recognizes a separate cause of action for constructive discharge independent of proof of some form of unlawful conduct giving rise to the constructive discharge.”

Peter Marchesi, attorney for the county, had told the court that the law doesn’t allow plaintiffs to claim constructive discharge without a “viable underlying claim” of illegal conduct such as retaliation or discrimination.

Levi wrote that, in Maine, a “plaintiff may use the doctrine of constructive discharge to satisfy the elements of ‘discharge’ or ‘adverse employment action’ in an otherwise actionable claim” under the Maine Human Rights Act.

To allow a plaintiff to separate constructive discharge from unlawful discrimination would run counter to existing employment law, Levy wrote.

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