Sexual Harassment Lawyer Blawg

SCA Pharmaceuticals called out for anti-gay harassment by new witness in Federal Suit

March 20, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

A witness has come forward and sworn under oath that a former employee of SCA Pharmaceuticals was sexually harassed and openly mocked by coworkers because he was a gay man. The following is taken from the Complaint against SCA filed in Federal Court and the Witness’s sworn statement. The names are redacted.

It was a recurring “joke” for The Harasser and his friends to ask The Employee how his girlfriend was doing, and who he would “chagachaga,” while thrusting their hips, to indicate they were referring to sex. The Harasser would rub his genitals, approach The Employee tell him to look down, gesture to his penis, chuckle and walk away. Since the harassment took place in front of a supervisor, The Employee believed that SCA was aware of it. Nonetheless it continued. In his sworn statement, The Witness describes seeing the Acting-Supervisor laughing along with offensive comments:

I witnessed our Team Lead . . . laugh along at these comments. . . .

Precision Planting Management committed shocking racial harassment of Black employee for years, says EEOC Charge

January 14, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

An EEOC Charge filed by an African American employee (the following is taken from the EEOC Charge) alleges that Precision Planting (“Precision”), a subsidiary of AGCO, has allowed racial harassment to continue despite repeated notice. For example, at a meeting managers joked about hanging and burning Black people and raping their women. Human Resources admitted it was aware of this incident and many others. HR told him he was an “emotional genius” for handling the abuse without having a crackup, but still failed to stop it.

When the Employee first began working at Precision towards the end of 2020, he immediately demonstrated his ability and willingness to work hard and achieve excellent results. Instead of congratulating the employee on his exemplary work, the employee’s coworkers and supervisors, resentful of having an African American employee do such good work, began making offensive racial jokes and comments daily. These comments included referring to him as “slave”, making so-called “slave jokes” because of how hard he worked, asking “why do black people work so hard?”, commenting “you must be from the south,” and when he explained he was from Arkansas, responding “that makes sense, you have a slave mentality, can you find other people like you?” meaning someone who “worked like a slave”.

Despite the Employee’s repeated complaints to management, Precision continued to allow and foster the racist environment through the years. The “slave” remarks and comments mocking his work ethic continued regularly. One coworker made numerous offensive comments such as “what’s 50 white guys chasing one black guy called? It’s called a PGA tour,” “Why do black people look like monkeys?”, “why do black people like watermelon and chicken?” and after a shooting in Morton, “I know it was one of you black people from Peoria.” His supervisor told him, “they’re just jealous, that’s why they make those comments.” He did not respond when the Employee asked why he did not do something to stop them. The remarks continued, unabated, on a daily basis. Nevertheless, the employee continued to excel in his job.

Marty Cook of Patriot Contractors Posted Offensive Racial Material on his Facebook page

January 13, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

Martin “Marty” Cook, is and was the Managing Member of Patriot Contractors, during the time two of its employees allege in their EEOC Charges (the following allegations are taken from their Charges), that they were subjected to racial harassment, anti-gay harassment, and retaliation.

Cook should lead by example. Yet even after the two employees filed EEOC Charges describing the racist abuse, Marty Cook, of Patriot Contractors, displayed a racially offensive video on his public Facebook page, as of the date of this blog. The video “jokes” about Black people all looking alike and Black people’s skin looking “ashy”, and presents African-Americans in a negative way.

Cook’s employees at Patriot Contracting may have access to his public Facebook page.

White Supremacist, Nazi and KKK threats against Black employee of Pipeline Plastics, alleges EEOC Charge

December 5, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

According to a Charge of Discrimination filed with the EEOC against Pipeline Plastics, our client (“the victim”) was the only African American employee at Pipeline Plastics working in the yard on his shift. Pipeline employs very few African Americans. On July 23, 2024, the victim arrived at work at Pipeline Plastics in Levelland, TX to find KKK and white supremacist graffiti in his forklift:

According to the EEOC Charge, when he reported it to the Plant Manager (“the PM”), he said “yeah I saw that and I knew it was going to make you feel some type of way.” The PM could have wiped it off before the victim arrived so he would not have had to endure it, but chose not to do that. According to a sworn statement by an eye witness, the PM told the victim to “wipe it off” himself. The witness testified that after this incident, Pipeline failed to take any action to prevent threats against its African American employees. The Charge alleges the PM just told the victim, “don’t worry about it.”

Pipeline should have held an all-hands meeting informing employees that racial harassment would not be tolerated. The Charge states that Pipeline never did, and that Pipeline should have taken other steps to find the culprit and prevent further racially threatening harassment.

EEOC Filing alleges Gates Corp. ignored report of sexual harassment — tell us about your experience at Gates

November 18, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

An EEOC Charge filed by a former Gates Corp. employee in Poplar Bluff, Missouri alleges that Gates ignored a report of sexual harassment, causing injury to the point that the victim had to seek treatment.

The Charge against Gates alleges that a Lead employee sent complainant vulgar sexual texts which bragged that “I touch your butt.” See texts to the left.

The Charge includes a sworn statement from the victim’s coworker which stated that “she showed me vulgar sexual messages on her phone that he had sent . . . including one in which he said he could touch her butt,” and that the coworker told their Manager what the Lead employee was doing to the complainant.

Is someone at Coach Protecting an alleged Sexual Harasser?

November 8, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

Todd Khan, Coach CEO

In a statement under oath a Coach employee testifies that Coach CEO Todd Khan and other top Coach executives are friendly with Luis Anzola, who is the subject of a Charge of sexual harassment filed with the EEOC:

3. Top executives at Coach, including CEO Todd Khan, treated Mr. Anzola as a personal friend. When they visited the store, they made a point to seek out Mr. Anzola to chat with him as soon as they entered the store. They appeared friendly and Mr. Anzola told me that they were.

Alleged harasser at General Dynamics NASSCO Norfolk Facing Criminal Charges of Sexual Battery

October 22, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

A Virginia woman, “Ms. Smith” (a pseudonym), has filed an EEOC Charge alleging that General Dynamics NASSCO Norfolk failed to stop sexual harassment by her supervisor following her complaints, and went on to retaliate against her. Public court records now reflect that the supervisor is facing charges of sexual battery of Ms. Smith.

In her EEOC Charge filed in June 2024, Ms. Smith alleges that from early in her employment as a firewatch at General Dynamics NASSCO Norfolk, her supervisor—the Firewatch Coordinator—subjected her to daily sexual harassment, which included sexual remarks, unwanted touching, and sexual come-ons. For example, the Coordinator asked to touch Ms. Smith’s body parts, asked her for sexual favors, and even kissed her face and grabbed her rear end and breasts. When she resisted his sexual advances, the Coordinator falsely told Ms. Smith’s higher-level supervisor that she had an “attitude.”

Ms. Smith’s Charge explains that she complained to her higher-level supervisor about the Coordinator’s harassment, but to no end: the harassment continued, including by the Coordinator falsely telling Ms. Smith’s coworker that Ms. Smith was willing to perform sexual favors at work. Ms. Smith was humiliated by his degrading remarks about her.

A Charge of Discrimination alleges Sexual Harassment of Employees and Customers at Coach’s Flagship Store

September 6, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

Sexual harassment has run rampant at a Coach store in NYC, according to a Charge of Discrimination filed recently by a former employee.

Tapestry, Inc. is a global fashion holding company headquartered in New York City. Its luxury brands include Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman. Tapestry’s sexual harassment policy is illegal: it lacks the most important protections provided under NYS law, and for years Tapestry has been ignoring complaints by women that Luis Anzola, a Craftsman who has worked at Coach for three decades at their flagship store (“the pinnacle of the Coach experience”), has been sexually harassing them.

A young woman who started at Coach when she was just 23 years old, and member of Gen Z — the very demographic that Coach is desperate to attract — has filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It alleges that over a period of a year and a half, she made four separate complaints to the Store Manager, to Human Resources and finally to Coach’s District Manager, Brian Glass. She told them that Anzola was following her around, coming on to her, and touching her, and that he would spend up to a half hour at her workstation, staring at her and not working. Her first Store Manager agreed the behavior was unprofessional and unacceptable, and would not be tolerated. But although management assured her that it would stop, it never did.

UPDATE: Judge Orders Racial Harassment/Retaliation case against Excel to Trial

May 21, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

In a text Order entered May 20, the Middle District of Louisiana confirmed that Weldon Moore’s claims of racial harassment and retaliation will go to trial, which was previously scheduled to begin July 22.

Lead Counsel Shilpa Narayan successfully led the charge to challenge Excel’s efforts to have Mr. Moore’s case dismissed. For his part, Mr. Moore has withstood the challenges of litigation, fighting for justice for more than three years to have his day in court.

Read more about the case here: https://www.sexualharassmentlawyerblawg.com/excel-usa-management-testimony-reveals-retaliatory-treatment-of-african-american-employee-who-filed-racial-discrimination-suit-weldon-moore-v-excel-contractors-llc-d-b-a-excel-usa-321-cv-00698-j/

EEOC Charges: Patriot Contracting in Reno, Nevada Retaliates Against a Victim of Sexual Orientation Harassment–and the Cancer Patient Who Stood Up for his Co-Workers

May 16, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

A Patriot Contracting Superintendent subjected an employee to highly offensive racist and homophobic slurs—including the N word and “faggot”—and threats of violence, according to Charges of Discrimination filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by two former Patriot employees. When the employee’s colleague stood up for the victim, the Superintendent retaliated against him, including forcing the colleague to perform work that was inappropriate and painful given his previously-disclosed status as a cancer patient, according to his own EEOC Charge.

Twenty-year-old “Kevin” (a pseudonym) had worked for Patriot as an excavator operator for five months when he was transferred to a Reno, Nevada job site supervised by a Superintendent in October 2023. This was one of his first full-time jobs, having graduated high school in 2021. “Martin” (also a pseudonym), a former law enforcement officer and highly experienced construction equipment operator, worked onsite under the Superintendent as well. As explained in the EEOC Charge he filed on March 6, 2024, when he came on board with Patriot, Martin—a valuable prospective employee who had years of relevant experience—had made clear to General Manager Ritchie Jensen that to accept the construction equipment operator position, Patriot would have to guarantee Martin wouldn’t be forced to work as a laborer. Martin had disclosed that he was a cancer patient, taking a daily medication to manage his cancer, which made laborer work painful and infeasible; he further disclosed that a preexisting knee condition also made such work unacceptable. Jensen guaranteed that Martin would only be required to operate construction equipment, not to perform a laborer’s manual work.

Unfortunately, as soon as Kevin moved to the Superintendent’s crew, the Superintendent began making extremely offensive and upsetting anti-gay slurs and remarks. As outlined in Kevin’s EEOC Charge, on a near-daily basis, the Superintendent would use the slur “faggot”—saying “hello faggot,” “what a faggot,” and similar remarks to Kevin. Before long, the Superintendent also targeted Kevin, a Native Hawaiian man, with egregious racial slurs—calling him slurs including N*****, monkey, and coon on a daily basis. The Superintendent behaved erratically and threateningly—displaying a gun to Kevin and his coworkers while announcing “this is for anyone that wants to fuck around”—and once placing Kevin in a chokehold with no warning.