Several EEOC settlements have made the news lately. Here’s another one to add to that list.

Three Baltimore-area Kobe Japanese Steak Houses have agreed to pay $80,000 and implement anti-harassment policies to settle a discrimination lawsuit filed this month by the EEOC. The suit accused managers at the White Marsh and Largo locations, along with a Virginia restaurant, of sexual and racial discrimination toward Hispanic female workers. The settlement, which includes cash payments to four employees as well as anti-harassment rules and training at the restaurants, does not include an admission of any wrongdoing by the restaurant group.

Since June 2003, Marta Yolanda Elias Garcia, Francisca Elizabeth Carrillos Lopez and other Hispanic women were subjected to “unwelcome and highly offensive sexual advances, including groping, touching and constant taunts about their sex, race and nation origin,” according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore City.

Garcia and Lopez were fired in retaliation for opposing these illegal actions, the Commision said.

Go to source web page: baltimoresun.com

Summer means an influx of teen workers for many employers. Teen employees bring with them a unique set of legal issues of which businesses should be aware. Here are some ways to get ready for this year’s youth initiative.

Department of Labor

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has published a web page that’s loaded with information and suggestions to help employers keep their teen-aged workers safe and to keep themselves in compliance with child labor laws this summer. Not all employers are aware of state and federal restrictions on the activities in which teens are permitted to engage at work. Alert employers will want to review this page, click on the links, and plan the steps they will take to decrease the risk that their teen employees will be injured at work.

The Delaware Department of Labor (DDOL) also has information about state child labor laws available in booklet form. A brief summary is available on the DDOL’s website.

Sexual Harassment Awareness

Employers should also take steps to address the special vulnerability of teen workers to sexual harassment. As an item on this blog noted a few weeks ago, an ABA Journal story reported that the number of teen-aged workers filing sexual harassment charges is on the rise. Teen workers are often part-time or seasonal, and may be in the workplace for the first time. They tend to fall between the cracks when it comes to training. Many restaurants, movie theaters and retail stores have teen-age supervisors and managers as well as workers. Teens tend not to realize that the standard of conduct at work is different from what’s permissible in a social setting.

Bottom Line

To minimize their risks, employers who hire teen-agers must make a strong effort to educate them (and their supervisors) about harassment, retaliation and workplace safety in a meaningful and understandable way.

Sexual Harassment Claim Based on Raunchy Radio Listening Leads to Liability

A female employee who quit her job when her employer failed to respond to her complaints about the offensive conduct of her male co-workers will see her day in court. A federal appeals court revived the sexual harassment claims, which alleged that the employer permitted the co-workers to enjoy the risqué humor on a daily radio and did nothing to stop the crude derogatory terms often employed when discussing women.

The outcome in Reeves v. C.H. Worldwide Transportation, Inc. (click the link for full-text of the opinon), seems to have surprised some employment law bloggers, including the Ohio Employment Law Blog, one of our favorite e-law blogs.

I think the outcome is consistent with prior cases.

Offensive Conduct

The employee, who was the only woman in her work group, was offended by being subjected to her co-workers’ choice of a daily morning radio show that featured sexually explicit content. They ignored her complaints to them and to her supervisor about the program, which included topics graphic enough not to post.

In addition, commercials broadcast during the program featured: “sexual favors; a bikini contest that instructed women to wear their most perverse bikinis; . . . a drug called Proton that promised to increase sexual performance, please a partner, and make the user a “’sexual tyrannosaurus rex.’”

The employee also complained about her male co-workers’ frequent use of the words “whore,” “bitch” and other, more colorful terms to describe women they disliked. And, all the while they continuously usedl sexually explicit “language, phrases, jokes, songs, comments, [and] remarks.”

Trial Court Finds “Not Based on Sex”

The district court granted judgment in favor of the employer, deciding that the harassment was not “based on” sex, since all the workers in the office were subjected to the same working conditions, and since the offensive conduct was not expressly “directed at” Reeves. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.

Appellate Court Finds the Conduct Did Not Have to Be “Directed At” the Employee

In its decision, the Court of Appeals relied on a prior decision involving racial harassment. In that case, the Court held that racially derogatory language did not have to be “directed at” the complaining employee in order to create a racially hostile workplace. Similarly, said the court in Reeves, found that sexually derogatory language did not have to be directed at the complaining female employee. The degrading nature of the language could be sufficient to satisfy the requirement that the harassment be “based on” sex.

The court also held that Reeves had produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that the harassment met the “severe or pervasive” requirement. The court noted that the offensive sex-specific language and the radio program were near daily occurrences for almost three years, (at which point Reeves quit). So the frequency of the conduct favored Reeves’ claim.

On the other hand, while the language was offensive, it was not directed at Reeves herself and therefore the court did not deem the conduct to be especially severe. Further, the conduct was not physically threatening to Reeves. But, it was objectively humiliating to her, particularly in light of evidence that Reeves’ male co-workers knew that their conduct made her uncomfortable but did not stop it.

Finally, there was evidence that the conduct interfered with Reeves’ work. She testified that at times the conduct made it difficult for her to concentrate on her work and she would have to leave the room. She also had to take time away from her work to ask her co-workers and supervisor to stop the offensive conduct, and to make notes for herself about what had happened.

Since Reeves had presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to decide in her favor, the court sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings.

Some commentators have expressed doubt as to the soundness of the court’s reasoning, especially in light of the possibility that the conduct was not actually “directed at” the lone female employee in the group. As the court noted, Reeves’ co-workers knew that she found their conduct to be offensive. But they continued to engage in it despite that knowledge.

These are the types of activities we routinely counsel our clients not to permit, and this case illustrates why we give that advice.

An employer sues an employee before the employee sues first. To some employers who have endured the bitter pill of meritless litigation filed by an ex-employee, this sounds like a dream come true. To most employment law attorneys, this sounds like a dream world.

The New York Law Journal published a fascinating, if sordid, story last week titled, NY Law Firm Preemptively Sues Secretary Who Threatened Rape Suit Against Partner. The story involves a complaint filed by a law firm, Bivona & Cohen, against a secretary, Windy Richards. According to the complaint, Ms. Richards had performance problems and decided to try to hang onto her job in an, well, an unusual way.

Allegedly, she targeted a partner who she knew had a drinking problem. The opportune moment arrived. While the partner was impaired by alcohol, Richards performed a lap dance for him. Next, she obtained “evidence” on a towel, demonstrating at least some kind of sexual encounter (think Monica). Then she hired a lawyer, who demanded $9 million to settle her claim that the partner in question had sexually harassed and ultimately raped her.

But the law firm beat her to the courthouse, filing a preemptive suit againt the sordid secretary. The suit asserts claims of defamation, tortious interference and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In addition, the suit seeks a declaratory judgment that the secretary was not harassed or harmed by the partner. Additionally, the firm seeks a judgment declaring that the firm may lawfully fire her for providing a false social security number to conceal a 1991 drug-related criminal conviction.

The partner has been disciplined in a manner not disclosed in the lawsuit (although the filing of the lawsuit publicizing the alleged drinking problem and lap dance incident may be viewed as significant disciplinary action all by itself). The secretary is on paid leave. No doubt the secretary’s answer to the complaint will include counterclaims for sexual harassment and retaliation.

The law firm’s strategy is highly unusual, but not unprecedented. A few years ago, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly did the same thing, and was represented by the same attorney, Ronald Green of Epstein, Becker & Green. In that case, O’Reilly accused his accuser, who had been trying to negotiate a settlement of a sexual harassment claim, of attempted extortion. Trouble is, as pointed out by The National Law Journal, currently, attempted extortion is a crime, not a basis for a civil lawsuit.

In this month’s edition of the American Bar Association’s pulication, the ABA Journal, is an article titled “New Troubles for Teens at Work.” The article reviews recent cases that seem to indicate the courts’ narrowing definition of what constitutes acceptable workplace behavior.

Restaurants, which tend to be a much more casual workplace enviornment, have been the source of a large percentage of teen harassment claims. In a recent decision by the federal appellate court for the Seventh Circuit, EEOC v. V&J Foods, employers were warned that they will not be excused from liability by the mere fact that they have a policy and reporting mechanism in place. Instead, the court warned the business community that, when it comes to teen harassment, the bar has been raised.

On March 5, 2008, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its annual Enforcement and Litigation Statistics for 2007 FY. The results were nothing to cheer about–especially for employers.

Number of Charges Filed

The EEOC received a total of 82,792 private sector discrimination charge filings last fiscal year. This is the highest volume of incoming charges since 2002. It is also the largest annual increase (9%) since the early 1990s.

Financial Recovery
These charges resulted in $345 million recovered by the Commission on behalf of claimants. This is a 6% increase from 2006FY

Types of Discrimination Alleged
According to the EEOC’s FY 2007 data, allegations of discrimination based on race, retaliation, and sex were the most frequently filed charges. These statistics are consistent with results from recent years.
But one statistic that has changed, although not surprisingly so, is in the retaliation category. Last year, for the first time, retaliation was the second highest charge category (behind race), surpassing sex-based charges. Historically, race has been the most frequently filed charge since the EEOC became operational in 1965.

Pregnancy- and gender-based claims, which includes sexual harassment also continued its climb upward. During FY 2007, pregnancy charges surged to a record high level of 5,587. This was a 14% increase from last year. Sexual harassment filings increased for the first time in seven years, numbering 12,510 – up 4%.

Another interesting factoid: a record 16% of sexual harassment charges were filed by men, up from 9% in the early 1990s.

And, so what?
What do the statistics mean to employers? They mean that discrimination issues are not going away on their own. Employers need to take these statistics seriously when planning for their new fiscal year. It means that supervisors and managers who work directly on the front line need to be properly trained in the laws that put your company at risk.