Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Washington
I worked at a Dairy Queen. Today, I was fired from that Dairy Queen.
Since I started working at that establishment, one of the supervisors has made repeated sexual advances in the form of sexual touching with her breasts.
The exact action is a rubbing of the breast on my arm while attending customers. She would stand next to me and lean across me, making clear contact on my person with her breasts.
Today, I asked if she was willing to cease this action.
She retorted "What did you just say to me?"
I repeated my request.
She walked away.
The manager's office door went from open to closed.
Several minutes passed. A second supervisor came to me and asked for clarification. I gave her the story I just told you all, and she said that I could have made the request differently. To state, I used the word "boobs" instead of "breasts." My request was "Would be willing to stop putting your boobs on me?"
I explained to the second supervisor that this made me feel disgusted because she was rubbing her boobs on me. I told her that there are clear boundaries that were being invaded.
About a quarter of an hour later, I was told by the first supervisor, the boob-rubber, that I was clear to go home. On my way through to the back door, the second supervisor asks to speak with me in the backroom. I sit with her and she informs me that other employees have made complaints that I have invaded their personal boundaries, which is bullshit. I rub elbows with people and tap people on the shoulder. There was one time I put my hand a male employee's shoulder. Elbows. Shoulders. Not boobs/breasts. I'm male, to state.
As mild background, I asked for fellow employees to stop wearing yoga pants to work, because it disgusted me to have to work around buttcracks. I assume some kind of statement was made, because the yoga pants were replaced by black work-pants.
Should I get a lawyer? Do we have a case?
Our family has a lawyer that claims to have an excellent expertise of employment cases.
My dad says it's not a big deal, and won't front the cost of a lawyer. I'm thinking I might be able to carry this out on my own, but I don't know much about the legal system, so that's what lawyers are for. Maybe I could get a loan.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
I heavily doubt you were let go purely for the reason stated.
If anything, it may have been simply an attempt to cover their backsides given that you've put yourself in the spotlight by making things awkward for your ex work-mates.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
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Dogmatique
I heavily doubt you were let go purely for the reason stated.
If anything, it may have been simply an attempt to cover their backsides given that you've put yourself in the spotlight by making things awkward for your ex work-mates.
I know. It's just the simple fact that they reversed my complaint onto me with no evidence at all. The second supervisor was almost in tears as we discussed the issue. She was feeling my situation because it was in fact completely backwards and she was caught in the middle. Everything about this is cocked up, so it seems pretty clear that some form of legal action can be taken. I only worked there for about a month and a half, so I don't think I can apply for unemployment benefits. I'm wanting to vent.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
You might have a good claim for illegal retaliation for complaining about possible sexual harassment (which is a form of sex discrimination) under federal law if your employer has at least 15 employees. Washington state law also prohibits sex discrimination and sexual harasssment and does not appear to set a minimum number of employees for its law to apply. I suggest you seek advice from an attorney who litigates employment discrimination claims. Most lawyers will give you a free initial consultation and if you have a very strong case with the possibility of good damages then an attorney would likely take the case on a contingent fee basis, meaning his/her fee would be a portion (e.g. one-third) of whatever is collected from a judgment. With that sort of fee agreement you don't pay any legal fees out-of-pocket. Note that you generally have to file a complaint with the appropriate federal and state agencies before you may sue, and there are strict deadlines for doing that. So if you are interested in pursuing this, don’t delay on it. In the meantime, apply for unemployment benefits unless you know for sure you are not eligible and start looking for a new job.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
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UniformNovember
I know. It's just the simple fact that they reversed my complaint onto me with no evidence at all. The second supervisor was almost in tears as we discussed the issue. She was feeling my situation because it was in fact completely backwards and she was caught in the middle. Everything about this is cocked up, so it seems pretty clear that some form of legal action can be taken. I only worked there for about a month and a half, so I don't think I can apply for unemployment benefits. I'm wanting to vent.
You said: "I asked for fellow employees to stop wearing yoga pants to work, because it disgusted me to have to work around buttcracks"
You may need to explain why it's okay for you to say that, yet complain about what is likely little more than accidental contact.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
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Dogmatique
You said: "I asked for fellow employees to stop wearing yoga pants to work, because it disgusted me to have to work around buttcracks"
You may need to explain why it's okay for you to say that, yet complain about what is likely little more than accidental contact.
I’m not seeing the connection. Complaining about what others wear because the clothing reveals too much or is overly sexual doesn’t somehow mean he wouldn’t be offended by some form of sexual contact at work (whether simply accidental or intentional). Nor do I see that his comment about the clothing would itself somehow be offensive.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
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Taxing Matters
I’m not seeing the connection. Complaining about what others wear because the clothing reveals too much or is overly sexual doesn’t somehow mean he wouldn’t be offended by some form of sexual contact at work (whether simply accidental or intentional). Nor do I see that his comment about the clothing would itself somehow be offensive.
I'm not even going to dignify that. Except to say that perception is a funny old thing, don't you think?
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
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UniformNovember
Should I get a lawyer? Do we have a case?
Buttcracks, boobs, cocked up, bullshit.
You apparently like to use vulgar language to get a rise out of people.
Doing it at work is good reason for termination.
The right way to have done any of this to make written complaints to the store manager without the vulgar language and personal affronts to other employees.
Maybe you'll be smarter about all this on your next job.
Meantime, feel free to consult your family attorney and see how that goes.
Though I think you'll be wasting your money.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
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UniformNovember
Our family has a lawyer that claims to have an excellent expertise of employment cases.
Then you should talk to your family's lawyer.
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Quoting UniformNovember
Since I started working at that establishment, one of the supervisors has made repeated sexual advances in the form of sexual touching with her breasts.
The exact action is a rubbing of the breast on my arm while attending customers. She would stand next to me and lean across me, making clear contact on my person with her breasts.
When you work in close proximity to other employees, as is very often the case in food service, you will at times lean across people, brush against people, and otherwise inadvertently touch people. It is very possible that your co-worker was inadvertently brushing against you and the rest existed only in your head.
You have given us no indication that she expressed any interest in you, whatsoever, beyond trying to reach past a co-worker to do her job. You have given us no indication that you ever spoke to her about your concerns. You have given us no indication that you ever approached her supervisor to complain that you felt that she was deliberately brushing against you.
You seem to be stating that the very first time you brought this issue to anybody's attention, it was in the form of a tactless accusation about what she was doing with her "boobs", and it seems likely that you made the accusation in the presence of customers. Is that in fact what happened?
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Quoting UniformNovember
I sit with her and she informs me that other employees have made complaints that I have invaded their personal boundaries, which is bullshit.
Or not. But we're not in a position to review their complaints.
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Quoting UniformNovember
As mild background, I asked for fellow employees to stop wearing yoga pants to work, because it disgusted me to have to work around buttcracks. I assume some kind of statement was made, because the yoga pants were replaced by black work-pants.
Why did you believe it to be your job to tell other employees that you could see their butt cracks and that you wanted them to wear different pants to work?
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Taxing Matters
You might have a good claim for illegal retaliation for complaining about possible sexual harassment (which is a form of sex discrimination) under federal law if your employer has at least 15 employees.
At this point we have no evidence -- none -- that the OP even once complained about the supposed sexual harassment. A company does not have a duty to stop sexual harassment until it knows that it has occurred. Even after the incident that led to termination it is not clear that the OP actually made an accusation of sexual harassment. And that's before we get back to the problem that, at this point, it's not even clear that sexual harassment occurred, or the complication that the OP has an admitted history of making inappropriate comments to co-workers.
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Taxing Matters
Complaining about what others wear because the clothing reveals too much or is overly sexual....
Yoga pants. There's nothing about yoga pants that is "overly sexual", and they do not by their nature "reveal too much".
Apparently he got uptight that he would occasionally catch a glimpse of a co-worker's 'coin slot', something that can actually happen with any type of pants (as anybody who has hired a plumber probably already knows), and decided to take it on himself to tell his co-workers what they should be wearing rather than speaking to a supervisor.
If he was uncomfortable, he should have gone through channels.
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Quoting Taxing Matters
doesn’t somehow mean he wouldn’t be offended by some form of sexual contact at work (whether simply accidental or intentional).
Here's the problem: We have one incident of contact, which may have passed below the woman's radar, where the OP responded inappropriately. There was no prior report of any kind made to management. We have a prior incident of the employee making inappropriate comments to female employees about their yoga pants. We have a pattern of touching that, even if the OP believes could only be interpreted as non-sexual, may have come across differently to the women he touched -- just as the 'brushing' incident did to him. All of this within the span of six weeks of employment.
While there is a small possibility that a franchisee is not going to be following the practices and standards dictated by the franchisor, a corporation that has been around as long as Dairy Queen will have instituted standard reporting procedures for sexual harassment claims. As a general rule an employer is not liable for co-employee sexual harassment when a mechanism to report harassment exists but the victim fails to utilize it.
With no witnesses to any inappropriate conduct by the woman he's accusing, no prior report made against her (and quite possibly no subsequent report), her insisting that any contact was inadvertent, his making an accusation against her in inappropriate terms and likely in an inappropriate context, his own prior history, and management's reasonably regarding a single, slight contact between employees in a food service setting to be non-sexual in nature, an after-the-fact accusation of sexual harassment does not have much credibility. Even if we assume that there was no mechanism in place for reporting allegations of sexual harassment, if the first time he made (or makes) an accusation of sexual harassment is after termination, it's all the weaker -- it's going to be hard to claim retaliation over an accusation that was not made prior to termination.
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Quoting Taxing Matters
Nor do I see that his comment about the clothing would itself somehow be offensive.
Take a look at what the OP has written and ask yourself, how do you think he would have reacted had a co-worker told him that his pants were too tight or that they saw his butt crack and that he needed to wear different pants to work? If the women did wear different pants when he was on shift, there's a good chance that it was because he creeped them out.
But whether or not his co-workers took offense, it's not his job to propose or enforce a dress code. When an employee has a problem with how his co-workers dress, he should take his complaint to management, and when you have two incidents of making inappropriate comments within a span of six weeks that's a pattern.
By all means, he can talk to the family lawyer about his situation, but based on the facts he's shared so far I expect that he's going to be told to move on with his life.
Re: Wrongful Termination Following a Supervisor's Sexual Touching
^^^What Mr. K. said.
And those who have followed my postings on this and other boards will be aware that I am frequently the sole responder who sees liability on the part of the employer. Not so here.