SAN FRANCISCO – A split U.S. appeals court dismissed a lawsuit on Tuesday in which a male CBS TV station employee alleged sexual harassment by a female manager who offered him oral sex and “life-altering” intercourse.

The case involves Hugh Hardage, who worked as an advertising executive for Washington state’s KSTW-TV, owned by Viacom Inc., starting in 1998. In a lawsuit, Hardage, who resigned in 2001, alleged that General Manager Kathy Sparks made unwelcome sexual advances on several occasions.

When Hardage complained to sales manager Patty Dean, he said she responded: “Why don’t you just do it and get it over with? It may put her in a better mood.” But Dean also set up an investigation of the alleged abuse.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said even if the remark was unfortunate, CBS acted properly overall, and it affirmed a lower court dismissal of the suit.

“Dean’s alleged comment to Hardage that ‘Why don’t you just do it and get it over with. It may put her in a better mood’ is certainly troubling,” Judge Clifford Wallace wrote. But “considering the ‘overall picture,’ CBS’s response was both prompt and reasonable as a matter of law.”

In a partial dissent, Judge Richard Paez said CBS did not properly investigate the alleged abuses.

“It is difficult to imagine how any reasonable juror could conclude that an employer who suggests that the complainant have sex with a harassing supervisor has acted reasonably to end the harassment,” he wrote.