Takeaway: Treat every harassment complaint as a compliance issue that requires immediate, thorough, and well-documented action.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued an airline and recovered significant compensatory and punitive damages for a female employee claiming sexual harassment and co-worker violations of anti-harassment training. The employer appealed the verdict but could not reduce it by asserting failure to mitigate and other defenses.
Toolkit: Managing Equal Employment Opportunity
The employee worked as a parts clerk for SkyWest Airlines at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. While there, she experienced demeaning sexual comments from her co-workers. At one point, the maintenance supervisor suggested to co-workers that they take the employee and sell her in the red-light district near the airport. Co-workers made innuendo-laden jokes and comments toward her, including comments about rape. She discussed the harassment with her husband and described some of the comments in text messages. She also reported the harassment to her supervisor. He seemed annoyed and said that they would see how it goes but, if he acted, it would put a bigger target on her back.
The comments continued and the harassment escalated, causing the employee extreme emotional distress. She went on medical leave and began taking antidepressants.
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