Sexual Harassment Lawyer Blawg
Hunter Dragon worked as a cleaner, and later an expeditor, at SCA in Windsor, Connecticut. Not long after Dragon started working at SCA, as alleged in his Amended Complaint , his coworker F.M. (who was not identified in the Complaint by name) asked Dragon, in front of several coworkers, whether he had a girlfriend. Dragon forthrightly told F.M. that he was gay. F.M. and his friends thereafter began a campaign of near-daily harassing “jokes,” gestures and comments directed at Dragon based on his sexual orientation—for instance, frequently asking Dragon how his girlfriend was doing, who he was having sex with, or who he would “chaga-chaga” with—while thrusting their hips or making other gestures referring to sex.
Even as he publicly mocked Dragon with his friends, F.M. sent Dragon messages coming on to him sexually—telling Dragon he was cute, and saying he wanted to “hook up.” The two did hook up—but afterward, F.M.’s behavior became menacing: he threatened to kill Dragon if he told anyone about their encounter. Dragon was terrified that F.M. would follow through on his threat.
The Complaint alleges that F.M’s harassment only intensified after these events. The very next day at work, F.M. asked Dragon if he was pregnant in front of several coworkers in the locker room where employees were required to gown up for their work. Over the following months, he repeatedly called Dragon homophobic slurs, including “fag,” “queer,” and “gay,” for example, “here comes the fag.” F.M. and his friends regularly asked Dragon if he was pregnant, and mocked his mannerisms by imitating him in an exaggerated, gay-stereotyped way. F.M.’s ongoing harassment of Dragon also became explicitly sexual—for instance, on more than one occasion F.M. rubbed his genitalia over his pants while staring at Dragon, including through a workstation window. He often stared at Dragon while Dragon was changing clothes in the locker room, even though F.M.’s own locker was on the other side of the locker room, away from Dragon’s. On one occasion, F.M. approached Dragon’s workstation and told him, “look down,” gesturing to his groin. Dragon couldn’t avoid seeing that F.M. was pointing to F.M.’s erect genitals in his pants. Dragon told him “no, please go away.” F.M. continued to tell Dragon to “look at it.”
As described in the Complaint, meanwhile, the offensive remarks and gestures continued—such as calling Dragon “bitch,” taunting him by asking a question along the lines of “if you go to the DMV, do you check male or female?”, making sexually graphic gestures at Dragon with a syringe bottle while pretending it was a penis, asking whether Dragon was going to kiss or massage male employees, and other highly offensive conduct. Nate Ellis, a supervisor and Team Lead in the Sanitization department, was even present on several occasions and heard the offensive comments—to which he would laugh along. On one occasion when F.M. propositioned Dragon to give the male employees massages, instead of taking action to stop the behavior, supervisor Ellis responded by asking Dragon, “Are you going to massage me?”
For months, Dragon endured his behavior, all while fearing that F.M. would follow through on his threat to kill Dragon. Ultimately, he worked up his courage, and stood up for himself by complaining about the harassment to Human Resources. He even told Human Resources about F.M.’s threat to kill him after the two had a sexual encounter. Dragon identified several coworker witnesses who could, and did, corroborate the harassment he had been enduring.
Nonetheless, when SCA claimed to Dragon that it had concluded its investigation, it informed him that Dragon would have to continue working with F.M.—otherwise, Dragon himself would have to take a transfer. Left with no other option to avoid continued work with his harasser, Dragon was forced to accept a transfer to a different department.
Even the transfer did not stop F.M.’s harassment. According to his Complaint, Dragon still encountered F.M. daily throughout the work facilities, and SCA often scheduled F.M. to work in the area where Plaintiff entered the clean room, where Plaintiff needed to be present for his work. F.M. continued to stare at Dragon while he gowned up, or when he bent down to put on his work boots. Dragon complained to SCA again, explaining that F.M. was coming into the clean room while he was working there. Yet even though camera footage confirmed that F.M. was present in the clean room when he was not supposed to be, SCA still did not take effective measures to end the harassment.
Unsurprisingly, the lack of consequences resulted in F.M. continuing his offensive sexual conduct. On multiple occasions he watched Dragon undress down to his underwear in the locker room—something Dragon was required to do for his job. F.M. came into the clean room, pacing back and forth and watching Dragon. Despite reasonably feeling deeply intimidated by F.M.’s menacing conduct and explicit threats, Dragon reported the behavior to SCA yet again. In response, SCA admitted not only that it had scheduled F.M. to work in the clean room, where Dragon had to work, but that security footage showed F.M. peering through the window, as Dragon had complained—but SCA told Dragon that since Dragon was not specifically aware he was being watched within the limited security footage it had reviewed, it would take no action.
Rather than act to stop the harassment, as Dragon states in his court filing, SCA chose another path: retaliating against Dragon for continuing to complain. Following his complaints, Dragon was written up for multiple absences, even as coworkers who missed time for similar reasons were not written up. Team Lead Ellis approached Dragon and called him a name, to the effect that he was a “little bitch,” for complaining about the harassment—which a coworker saw and even reported to Human Resources—and later again called Dragon a “douchebag” for complaining. Dragon’s coworkers ostracized him for getting F.M. “in trouble”—and when a coworker refused to help Dragon lift some heavy totes, Dragon injured his shoulder, forcing him to miss multiple weeks of work. SCA refused to find other work for Dragon while he was on a no lifting restriction, even though it accommodated other workers’ restrictions. As alleged in the Complaint, SCA later went on to purport to issue “litigation holds” to several individuals, which expressly forbade them from communicating with Dragon—and, implicitly, his counsel. The holds were effective in their aim—chilling cooperation from witnesses to the harassment and retaliation, and putting a target on Dragon’s back.
Finally, in January 2022, Dragon met with SCA’s head of Human Resources, Steven Dufort, who reports directly to SCA’s President. Dragon explained that no matter how many times he complained, it did not make any difference in ending the misconduct, and the harassment continued. Dufort was unmoved: he told Dragon he would simply have to deal with having his own shift changed, and would still have to see F.M. at work. With respect to those conditions, Dufort told Dragon: “you have to decide what you want to do”—i.e., keep working under the conditions of ongoing harassment, or resign.
The harassment never stopped. F.M. continued to stare at Dragon in the locker room, enter the locker room while Dragon was required to change there, and to come into the bathroom while Dragon was present there, discussing him in another language with friends, and using Dragon’s name while laughing. A coworker shared with Dragon that F.M. had recently sexually harassed and threatened the coworker, as well. The conditions were intolerable and unchanging, and Dragon was constructively discharged–forced to quit to end the harassment.
Dragon is now pursuing his claims in a Connecticut federal court, despite having endured personal intimidation and corporate indifference. In 2020, the Supreme Court in Bostock v. Clayton County made clear that Title VII’s protections from employment discrimination apply equally to discrimination based on sexual orientation—and this protection extends to every state in the country. No employee should have to endure offensive sexual comments and conduct at work simply because of who they are.