The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City can legally regulate the weight of its employees, a New Jersey appeals court ruled this week.

Thursday, the court said the casino wasn’t discriminating illegally by imposing a weight requirement on the servers. But it also said part of the lawsuit bright by 21 servers should be returned to a lower court to determine if 11 of the woman were subjected to a hostile workplace over the standards’ enforcement.

The 22 servers who had taken Borgata to court are still being allowed to move ahead with a lawsuit claiming they were subjected to a hostile work environment regarding how casino managers enforced those standards. One was fired for gaining too much weight; one was let go for losing too much.

“We have long held that the Borgata’s personal appearance policy is fair and reasonable”, said Joe Corbo, the casino’s vice president and legal counsel.

All so-called “Borgata Babes”, both men and women, are required to agree to the casino’s personal-appearance policy when they are hired. The court noted the casino made it expressly clear that anyone called a “Borgata Babe” must choose in look as an important element of the occupation, the Press reports. Female servers are expected to wear tight-fitting corsets, high heels, and stockings. “It is tough to distinguish the harassment claims the court is acknowledging in the general theory the working environment is inhospitable due to the private appearance standards”.

Deborah Mains, the women’s attorney, said the cocktail waitresses had been asked by supervisors whether they were pregnant or just getting fat, while co-workers allegedly snorted like pigs at them. Neither of these servers was part of the recent litigation.

In fact, the casino is so proud of its Borgata Babes that each year it produces a top-selling calendar featuring many of its attractive team members.

The defendant’s business decision to differentiate itself from the existing Atlantic City casinos included the creation of the “BorgataBabes”, a specialized group of costumed beverage servers.

The dispute centers around personal appearance standards adopted by Borgata in 2005, which forbids employees from gaining or losing more than 7 percent of their body weight.