A McDonald's sign is shown outside one of their restaurants in Encinitas, California January 29, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Blake
(Reuters) - The operator of 10 McDonald's Inc franchises in New England will pay $1.6 million to settle claims by a federal agency and the state of Vermont that a restaurant manager routinely groped and made sexual comments to workers, including many teenagers.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Burlington, Vermont, on Thursday approved a consent decree that also requires the franchisee, Coughlin Inc, to overhaul its anti-harassment policies. Coughlin denied wrongdoing.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a lawsuit filed last year said the manager of a Coughlin-owned McDonald's in Randolph, Vermont, harassed male and female workers over a five-year period, including grabbing and biting their buttocks and breasts and making lewd comments.
The manager was fired in 2019 after a male employee's parents told police that the manager had hit him in the genitals, according to court filings.
The Vermont Attorney General's office joined the case last year and accused Coughlin of violating state anti-discrimination laws.
Lawyers for Coughlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. McDonald's was not involved in the case.
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