• 29
  • September
    2011

Most companies in California have employment policies in place that are designed to protect their employees from sexual harassment. However, if employees are still subject to sexual harassment, they should be able to report the matter to their bosses without negative repercussions.

Firing an employee out of retaliation for reporting sexual harassment is illegal. Unfortunately, it still happens, and that is exactly what happened to two California employees at a health care company.

According to a lawsuit that was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Kimber was sexually harassed by her supervisor while working as an administrative assistant. On a daily basis, the supervisor would make inappropriate comments about Kimber's appearance, marital status and body; send inappropriate text messages and emails; and touch her in aggressive and unwanted ways.

When the company provided training about sexual harassment, Kimber decided to report the incidents. Because she was nervous about reporting the harassment, another female co-worker accompanied her.

The lawsuit filed by the EEOC states that "instead of taking appropriate steps to investigate or correct the harassment, the company began to hyper-scrutinize the work of the two women and subsequently fired both of them."

As a result of the lawsuit, the health care company agreed to pay the women a sum of $230,000 in wages and emotional distress. The company also agreed to implement preventative measures to help ensure other employees are not subject to sexual harassment in the workplace.

Source: Napa Valley Register, "The Doctors Company to pay $230,000 in sexual harassment, retaliation lawsuit," Jennifer Huffman, Sept. 26, 2011