Over $2 million, along with “a very strong consent decree,” is the price of settlement of an EEOC same sex sexual harassment (and retaliation) lawsuit action against a New Mexico car dealership on behalf of over 50 men.
The complaint alleged that for ten years company managers “subject[ed] a class of men to egregious forms of sexual harassment, including shocking sexual comments, frequent solicitations for oral sex, and regular touching, grabbing, and biting of male workers on their buttocks and genitals.”
EEOC General Counsel Lopez said that “This settlement serves to remedy the egregious sexual harassment that the EEOC alleged the men were subjected to … It also raises awareness that all employees, male and female, are entitled to work in an environment free of sexual harassment and retaliation.”
On June 27, 2013 we posted that we had just written about same sex harassment, and asked whether it was actionable under Title VII. Title VII affords no protection against discrimination based upon sexual orientation, although an increasing number of states and municipalities have passed such laws.
Given the substantial sanctions in this new settlement and the severity of the allegations we feel that our earlier post bears republication:
“As we said before, when there are allegations of same sex harassment asserted under Title VII, the courts must go through a tortured analysis to determine whether there was discrimination on the basis of sex. We cited one such recent federal case out of New York where a male employee complained that his male supervisor had sexually harassed him with vulgar comments, grabbing his testicles and hitting him and other male employees in the crotch.
In its analysis, the court asked whether the supervisor similarly subjected female employees to the same harassing acts, and held that ‘a reasonable jury could find that direct comparative evidence shows that [the supervisor] treated women better than men and that, therefore, men were ‘exposed to [a] disadvantageous term[] or condition[] of employment to which [women] were not.’
As if waiting for the result in that case, the EEOC just filed suit against a Texas-based company on behalf of a female employee who claimed a sexually hostile work environment. She alleged that her female supervisor ‘on an almost daily basis … engaged in misconduct such as frequently grabbing, poking and/or touching her breasts, buttocks and thighs in plain view of co-workers and the company’s directors. … The woman was referred to as ‘bitch’ and ‘slut’ by the supervisor almost every day at work.’”
It appears that courts are increasingly upholding same sex harassment claims, grounding the claim quite properly under the gender discrimination section of Title VII.