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Examples of Actual Judgments and Settlements

The following news clippings from 1998 make interesting reading. The many out of court settlements made by smaller companies are not included.

AGAINST EMPLOYER

$650,000____________________________Fishman and Merrick

Roxanne Rochester, a Chicago lawyer, claimed she was forced out of her job at Fishman and Merrick when she said she was sexually harassed and assaulted. Rochester claimed that former law partner Gerald Fishman abused her during 1990 and 1991. The jury deliberated for less than three hours and returned a verdict in her favor with an award of $650,000.

$3.5 Million____________________________Baker and McKenzie

The world's largest law firm must pay up for creating a sexually hostile work environment. Former secretary Rena Weeks accused partner Martin Greenstein and Baker & McKenzie of creating a hostile work environment and failing to take steps to prevent Greenstein's misconduct. The court found that at the time Weeks was hired, Baker & McKenzie and its relevant managing agents were aware that Greenstein was likely to create such a hostile environment. A series of women had already complained to supervisors that Greenstein harassed them; however, the firm took no action and did not even enter the complaints in his personnel file. The firm actually transferred several of the complainants and fired one of them. If a lower-level employee complained, the firm ignored or dismissed the complaint.

$257,500____________________________Charlie Gitto's Pasta House

A Missouri federal judge entered a $257,500 award on behalf of a former waitress who claimed that she was forced to quit her job because of sexual harassment. Brookie Blake claimed that during her employment at Charlie Gitto's Pasta House, she was subjected to numerous acts of sexual harassment, including pressure from her manager, George Gitto, for a sexual relationship, in return for preferential treatment and scheduling. The "last straw" occurred on January 31, 1994: Gitto pinned her on a table and exposed himself while saying, "You know you want it." Less than two weeks later, Blake claimed she was constructively discharged because of an intolerable working environment.

FOR EMPLOYER

Employer Not Liable for Attempted Rape Due to Timely Response

An employer's timely, appropriate action in response to a sales representative's allegation that a co-worker tried to rape her during a national sales meeting is a complete defense to her sexual harassment claims. Lori Todd attended Ortho's national sales meeting in Boston. After a day of conferences, she stopped at the hospitality suite, where she agreed to go to a jazz club with two other product specialists and James Moreland, Ortho's director of trade relations. Later, Moreland attempted to kiss Todd while they were alone in the hotel elevator. Moreland apologized and insisted that she accompany him to his room for a complete apology. Once inside the room, Moreland overpowered Todd, pinned her to the bed, and allegedly attempted to rape her. When she began hyperventilating, he allowed her to leave. When Todd reported the incident, she was urged to tell the director of employee relations; he told her that she had the right to inform the police. Ortho officials confronted Moreland the following week, conducted a three-week investigation, and discharged Moreland, giving him a severance package in exchange for a release of all claims.

AGAINST EMPLOYER

$350,000____________________________New Jersey Attorney Generals Office

Barbara Davis won $300,000 in back wages and $50,000 for emotional distress because she had been sexually harassed by her boss in the New Jersey attorney generals office. Davis claimed that Richard Carley, former deputy director of the Criminal Justice Division of the attorney generals office, asked her for oral sex, grabbed her breasts and buttocks, and continually made crude sexual comments to her for four years. Davis also complained that New Jersey failed to stop Carley's behavior after she complained.

$235,000____________________________Mobile Radiology

Mobile Radiology, a Clearwater, Florida medical services company, will pay $235,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that its president sexually harassed six female employees. The lawsuit alleged that Earle Hoaglin created a hostile environment with making graphically explicit remarks, touching several of the plaintiffs, requesting sexual favors, and threatening termination for failure to comply. On one occasion, Hoaglin told one woman they would be attending a business meeting together, yet he took her for drinks and to a hotel room. The settlement requires him to personally file written reports to the EEOC to allow it to monitor the company and any future business he may operate.

FOR EMPLOYER

Burlington Industries v. Ellerth, and Faragher v. City of Boca Raton (06/29/98)

Justice Kennedy, "An employer is subject to vicarious liability to a victimized employee for an actionable hostile environment created by a supervisor with immediate (or successively higher) authority over the employee." When no tangible employment action is taken, an employer may raise an affirmative defense by showing it "exercised reasonable care to prevent or correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior" and that "the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise."

AGAINST EMPLOYER

$107 Million____________________________Lucky's

"Lucky" food store chain in California recently paid $107.25 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.

$34 Million____________________________Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi's agreement to pay $34 million is the biggest sexual-harassment settlement ever obtained by the U.S. government. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Mitsubishi's North American division in 1996, contending that women on the assembly line at its Illinois factory were groped, insulted, and subjected to raunchy insults. The record-breaking settlement will be shared by 350 women who alleged that male co-workers and supervisors kissed and fondled them, demanded sexual favors, and retaliated against those who refused. The men also called the women "whores" and "bitches" and posted sexual graffiti, pictures, and pornographic drawings. Workers also allegedly used Mitsubishi phones to arrange parties with strippers who sold sex and let men lick whipped cream off their breasts; managers were accused of participating and doing nothing when other employees complained.

$5.5 Million____________________________U.S. Postal Service

A jury awarded $5.5 million to the family of a woman who was driven to suicide by what she claimed was harassment and discrimination by her bosses and underlings at the Postal Service. Judith Coflin's family accused her co-workers of calling her "ugly as a dog," circulating a caricature of her and leaving a suggestive poem for her at her job at a processing center. They accused her co-workers of intentionally botching jobs or missing deadlines to sabotage her career because she was a woman. Ms. Coflin, a diabetic, overdosed on insulin in 1995, leaving a suicide note blaming the Postal Service. The jury awarded her family $500,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

$23 Million____________________________Johnson Controls

A Los Angeles jury awarded a former employee at Johnson Controls more than $23 million in a wrongful termination suit. The employee claimed he had been targeted for sexual harassment after he reported unethical business practices at the company, a Milwaukee-based thermostat control maker. Jurors awarded him $6 million in compensatory damages and $17 million in punitive damages.

FOR EMPLOYER

Non-Employee's Sexual Harassment Claim Can Proceed

An Iowa woman can sue a company that never employed her but which she said caused her to lose her job after she complained of sexual harassment. The plaintiff was an employee of IBP Corp., but she reported to work each day at a "scale house" on Bil-Mar Foods' premises. The two companies have one connection: Bil-Mar allowed IBP to use its scale house to weigh trucks. The woman alleged she was removed by IBP from the job at Bil-Mar's request after she complained of alleged sexual harassment, including touching, by a Bil-Mar employee. The Bil-Mar employee started a rumor that he had had sexual intercourse with the woman.

AGAINST EMPLOYER

$2 Million____________________________Philip Morris

Mary Wilson sued Philip Morris in 1994, alleging she suffered more than a year of sexual harassment by men she supervised at the Louisville, Kentucky plant. Both Wilson and the company agreed that after she complained of the harassment, the company sent all three men at issue to sexual-harassment counseling, and the sexual comments then stopped. However, Wilson contended that the men retaliated against her through a work slowdown. When she complained to her supervisors, the company offered to move her to another department, but she refused. The jury awarded Wilson $2 million for humiliation, embarrassment, and mental anguish.

$600,000____________________________Norton Company

Quality control inspector Donald Belanger sued Norton Company, complaining that he was subjected to years of sexual harassment by a male co-worker. Belanger contended that the co-worker twice attacked him, constantly asked to have sex, and made lewd comments and gestures. When Belanger complained to his supervisor, he was told to "turn the other cheek." The supervisor also made sexual comments and implied that Belanger was a homosexual. The jury returned a $600,000 verdict based only on his complaint of discrimination by creating a sexually hostile work environment.

$150,000____________________________General Motors

General Motors will pay $150,000 to three black auto workers who accused a white union official of racial and sexual harassment. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission named GM in the lawsuit because GM failed to take action to stop the alleged harassment. A GM spokeswoman said that the company settled to avoid expensive litigation and was admitting no wrongdoing. The EEOC said the union official made racially harassing comments to all three plaintiffs and sexually harassed the female supervisor. The union official is attempting to regain his job.

$1 Million____________________________Belk

Peggy Moore, a former clerk at the Belk store in Crystal River, Florida, sued Belk because it did nothing to stop three years of harassment by Michele Dougherty, her supervisor in the cosmetics department. Moore alleged that Dougherty disrobed in front of her and asked Moore if she liked her body. She also contended that Dougherty grabbed her, prodded her, kissed her, and then reduced her hours when she did not return the advances. Moore quit her job because she could no longer take the harassment.

$1.2 Million____________________________BWD Group LTD

BWD Group, LTD., of Lake Success, New York agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a sexual harassment case. The suit alleged that a now-retired principal and a vice president of the company propositioned employees, touched their breasts and buttocks, and questioned them about the size and shape of clients' breasts. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the company on behalf of nine women.

$514,000____________________________Abbot Laboratories Inc

A federal jury in Illinois awarded $514,656 to a female former drug company employee who claimed she was fired in retaliation for filing an internal complaint of sexual harassment against her male supervisor. Five years after beginning to work at Abbott Laboratories Inc., Linda Place complained to the company's employee relations representative about alleged sexual harassment by Charles Harrington, her supervisor. Place stated that she complained to other managers about Harrington's behavior, but management failed to take any remedial action. She complained of a hostile work environment through requests for sexual favors as well as verbal/physical conduct of a sexual nature. Place alleged that after she complained, the company retaliated with unfair evaluations and a transfer to a substantially inferior position.

$1.75 Million____________________________First Asset Management

Lew Lieberbaum & Co., a New York-based investment banking and brokerage house now known as First Asset Management, will pay $1.75 million to a group of female and African-American former employees to settle a discrimination suit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In the suit, the EEOC alleged that officers and managers of the firm engaged in a wide range of sexually offensive conduct such as unsolicited touching, abusive language, sexual propositions, distribution of pornographic materials, and hiring female erotic dancers to perform at office parties. The EEOC also alleged that the company failed to promote female and black employees and paid them at lower rates than other employees.

$900,000____________________________Schering Plough Corp.

A New Jersey jury awarded $900,000 to a former Schering-Plough Corp. employee who claimed the company retaliated against her for reporting that she had been sexually harassed by a supervisor. Colleen Ford, a microbiology laboratory manager, was entitled to $845,000 in back and future pay and $55,000 for emotional distress. Ms. Ford charged that her supervisor sexually harassed her and other women in the department she supervised.

$45,000____________________________Thomas A. Troncalli

An Atlanta jury awarded Regina Jones $45,000 in compensatory damages and $245,891 in punitive damages in a highly-publicized sexual harassment case against a local automobile dealer, Thomas A. Troncalli. Jones claimed that Troncalli touched her breasts against her will, followed her, and threatened her. In determining that punitive damages were warranted in the case, the jury found that Troncalli acted with the specific intent to harm Jones.

$200,000____________________________Occidental

A jury may find a company liable for sexual harassment of a female employee by a company client without necessarily finding that the client himself is liable for unwanted sexual acts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has ruled. Occidental's Puerto Rico staff, all women, were told to attend a hotel party unaccompanied and make themselves available to dance with executives of the company's most important customer in Puerto Rico. Ms. Rodriguez alleged that one customer repeatedly made unwelcome advances and suggestive comments. He asked her to dinner and to visit his office after hours. He sent her a sexually explicit card. When Ms. Rodriguez complained to her boss, she was told to respond to the customer "as a woman."

$250,000____________________________Continental Airlines

A federal judge in New Jersey has reduced to $250,000 a jury award of $500,000 in damages for emotional distress to a former Continental Airlines pilot who alleged that she was subjected to a sexually hostile environment that included pornography left in the cockpit by her male co-workers. Captain Tammy Blakey testified that a pornographic picture fell out of a flight manual while an FAA inspector looked through it. The evidence also indicated that pornographic pictures were glued to the bottom of drawers in the cockpit and placed behind panels in the cockpit and marked with an "X" so pilots would know to remove the panels to view the pictures. Some of the pornography was specifically directed at Blakey with her name written on it.

$70,000____________________________Omega Optical

A jury verdict of $70,783 in back pay to a male employee who alleged that he was fired for rebuffing a sexual advance by his female supervisor has been upheld. The plaintiff worked as a sales representative for Omega Optical Company. He alleged that at one point when there were too few chairs for their party, his supervisor sat on his lap and rubbed the inside of his thigh with her hand for several minutes. He felt embarrassed and interpreted her conduct as a sexual overture. Although evidence indicated that he had an excellent sales record, she fired him one week later.

$9.85 Million____________________________Astra USA

Astra USA, the American subsidiary of Astra AB, a Swedish pharmaceutical company, has agreed to pay nearly $9.85 M to at least 80 former employees complaining of sexual harassment and retaliation. Astra admitted allowing a hostile work environment, including requests for sexual favors in exchange for favorable treatment on the job. Former company president Lars Bildman, who was fired in 1996 and has since pleaded guilty to tax evasion, was accused of demanding drinking, partying, fondling, as well as replacing mothers and older females with beautiful single young women who were pressured into having sex. Astra has restructured its personnel department and agreed to implement a sexual harassment policy. The company also said it took action against about 30 employees and Astra customers for taking party in the harassment. In addition, it has sued Bildman for $15 M to recover costs related to the investigation by the EEOC.

$72,000___________________________Rigidply Rafters Inc.

A male former employee of Rigidply Rafters Inc. was awarded $72 K in damages for retaliation and back pay, interest, and front pay despite his same-sex sexual harassment claim being rejected by a federal jury. The man was terminated in 1994. He claimed his inability to get a job was due, in part, to Rigidply's providing bad references to potential employers, labeling him "suit happy" and warning them to "be careful."

$206,000____________________________Betsy Ross Flag Girls

Betsy Ross Flag Girls has agreed to pay $206 K to settle a sexual harassment suit filed by the EEOC on behalf of six women. In addition, they will put in place an internal complaint procedure and train their employees on sexual harassment. The women's complaints were of unwanted verbal and physical advancements by an executive.

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