Sexual Harassment Lawyer Blawg

Witness Files Statement Under Oath About Slurs at Patriot Contractors

May 14, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

A witness made a filing under oath that supports two workers’ claims in their charges against Patriot Contractors. The two workers’ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges say that a company Superintendent used frequent slurs—including the N word and “f*ggot”—and threatened violence. Then, when a coworker—who Patriot knew was and still is battling cancer—stood up for the victim, the Superintendent retaliated, forcing him, the cancer patient, to perform work that was painful due to his disclosed cancer treatment.

The witness says in the new filing that the Superintendent repeatedly called one of the workers a “pineapple f*ggot;” used slurs including the N word, “wetback,” “sp*c,” and “queer;” and rejected job applicants while saying things like “oh, they’re in the Navy, they’re probably a f*ggot,” and “nope, he’s black, he’ll be lazy.”

This witness’s filing says she called Patriot’s Human Resources manager about monthly and complained to her about the Superintendent’s harassment—in fact, in some of these calls, the witness told HR that someone had quit because the Superintendent called them a racial slur. HR would just respond “well, that’s just [the Superintendent,] I’ll talk to him,” or “oh, I thought he calmed down, I’ll talk to him”—and the Superintendent kept behaving the same way. The filing says that Patriot’s Reno site would go through as many as three to five employees per week in peak hiring season–new hires would come in for one or two days, or might not even finish their first day, and then they would not come back, because of how this Superintendent behaved.

Buffalo Wild Wings General Manager to Employees: Expect Sexual Harassment, According to EEOC Charge Alleging Complaints by Multiple Employees

April 11, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

The following is taken from documents filed with the EEOC against Buffalo Wild Wings in Illinois. “Bill” (name changed to protect the victim), was subjected to frequent, sexually offensive comments by the General Manager of a Buffalo Wild Wings franchise in Marion, Illinois, where he worked. The GM aggressively taunted him, commenting about Bill’s sexual preferences, asking for his phone number so Bill could experience being with another man, and making statements about what “type of gay” the GM thought Bill was. Sometimes the GM would stand directly behind Bill at close proximity, causing Bill to feel physically unsafe and triggered. At the time Bill began his employment at Buffalo Wild Wings, he was a sexual assault survivor who was recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the constant sexualized taunting by the GM sent Bill into an emotional tailspin. The documents filed with the EEOC suggest that Buffalo Wild Wings could have and should have prevented this.

Bill was told by multiple coworkers that the GM had already been transferred from two other Buffalo Wild Wings locations due to complaints of sexual harassment. Soon after the GM was transferred to Marion, a Line Cook reported another cook for sexual harassment. The GM took the Line Cook into the office and told her that because it was a restaurant, sexual harassment was to be expected. That sent a clear message that sexual harassment was to be tolerated.

Around the time of the Line Cook’s complaint, another coworker sent the Director of Operations, Jon Bruenig, this email:

An EEOC Charge Alleges that Andrew Whisler of the Virginia Diner Ignored Complaints of Sexual Harassment of a Minor

April 3, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

A Mother and Daughter have filed Charges with the Virginia Attorney General’s office and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), alleging that they were both sexually harassed while working at the Virginia Diner by the Kitchen Manager. The Daughter was only 17, below the age of consent in Virginia, when she was physically sexually harassed. The Virginia Diner is owned by the The Virginia Food Group whose CEO is Andrew Whisler.

The following is taken from the filed Charges which quote sworn statements.

The Kitchen Manager said to the daughter, repeatedly, are you still a virgin, whoever comes between your legs is lucky, we need to get you a real man who can satisfy you and provide for you like a real man can. He put his hand on her back and rubbed it down to her behind. He said “Let me get between your legs” when bending down to get something while she stood at the register. Returning a few minutes later saying “did you get what I said earlier”? and when she said no, repeating his comment. Another time he pulled her hair holding on to it, while he walked away. Mother and Daughter witnessed the Kitchen Manager asking female hosts and servers about their “sex lives,” grabbing their hair and rubbing their backs, touching their behinds, and asking things like “did you get laid tonight?” and “did [your boyfriend] give it to you last night?”

EEOC Charge alleges COSTCO Vice President Paul Pulver failed to stop racial harassment

March 27, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

These facts are taken from the EEOC Charge against COSTCO. The victim and harasser’s names have been changed. For many years, “Jay,” a Costco Wholesale employee in Newport News, Virginia, endured racial harassment from his coworker, “Sharon.” Jay is Egyptian. Sharon regularly mocked his accent, made derogatory gestures suggesting he had a bad smell, sprayed Lysol toward him, and encouraged coworkers to ridicule him, because of his race, national origin and ethnicity. Despite repeatedly reporting these incidents to management for many years the harassment continued.

When he complained to his Front-End Manager on September 20, 2023, the Manager replied that she “can’t force employees to respect” him. An Operations Manager later acknowledged the harassment, but rather than helping to end it, suggested that Jay transfer to another warehouse for a “fresh start.”

On October 11, 2024 Jay escalated his concerns to the Store Manager who responded by saying there’s “something to earning an employee’s respect.” Even after bringing the issues to Costco Vice President Paul Pulver in mid-October 2024 the harassment continued.

SCA Pharmaceuticals called out for anti-gay harassment by new witness in Federal Suit

March 20, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

A witness has come forward and sworn under oath that a former employee of SCA Pharmaceuticals was sexually harassed and openly mocked by coworkers because he was a gay man. The following is taken from the Complaint against SCA filed in Federal Court and the Witness’s sworn statement. The names are redacted.

It was a recurring “joke” for The Harasser and his friends to ask The Employee how his girlfriend was doing, and who he would “chagachaga,” while thrusting their hips, to indicate they were referring to sex. The Harasser would rub his genitals, approach The Employee tell him to look down, gesture to his penis, chuckle and walk away. Since the harassment took place in front of a supervisor, The Employee believed that SCA was aware of it. Nonetheless it continued. In his sworn statement, The Witness describes seeing the Acting-Supervisor laughing along with offensive comments:

I witnessed our Team Lead . . . laugh along at these comments. . . .

Precision Planting Management committed shocking racial harassment of Black employee for years, says EEOC Charge

January 14, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

An EEOC Charge filed by an African American employee (the following is taken from the EEOC Charge) alleges that Precision Planting (“Precision”), a subsidiary of AGCO, has allowed racial harassment to continue despite repeated notice. For example, at a meeting managers joked about hanging and burning Black people and raping their women. Human Resources admitted it was aware of this incident and many others. HR told him he was an “emotional genius” for handling the abuse without having a crackup, but still failed to stop it.

When the Employee first began working at Precision towards the end of 2020, he immediately demonstrated his ability and willingness to work hard and achieve excellent results. Instead of congratulating the employee on his exemplary work, the employee’s coworkers and supervisors, resentful of having an African American employee do such good work, began making offensive racial jokes and comments daily. These comments included referring to him as “slave”, making so-called “slave jokes” because of how hard he worked, asking “why do black people work so hard?”, commenting “you must be from the south,” and when he explained he was from Arkansas, responding “that makes sense, you have a slave mentality, can you find other people like you?” meaning someone who “worked like a slave”.

Despite the Employee’s repeated complaints to management, Precision continued to allow and foster the racist environment through the years. The “slave” remarks and comments mocking his work ethic continued regularly. One coworker made numerous offensive comments such as “what’s 50 white guys chasing one black guy called? It’s called a PGA tour,” “Why do black people look like monkeys?”, “why do black people like watermelon and chicken?” and after a shooting in Morton, “I know it was one of you black people from Peoria.” His supervisor told him, “they’re just jealous, that’s why they make those comments.” He did not respond when the Employee asked why he did not do something to stop them. The remarks continued, unabated, on a daily basis. Nevertheless, the employee continued to excel in his job.

Marty Cook of Patriot Contractors Posted Offensive Racial Material on his Facebook page

January 13, 2025 | by Employment Law Firm

Martin “Marty” Cook, is and was the Managing Member of Patriot Contractors, during the time two of its employees allege in their EEOC Charges (the following allegations are taken from their Charges), that they were subjected to racial harassment, anti-gay harassment, and retaliation.

Cook should lead by example. Yet even after the two employees filed EEOC Charges describing the racist abuse, Marty Cook, of Patriot Contractors, displayed a racially offensive video on his public Facebook page, as of the date of this blog. The video “jokes” about Black people all looking alike and Black people’s skin looking “ashy”, and presents African-Americans in a negative way.

Cook’s employees at Patriot Contracting may have access to his public Facebook page.

White Supremacist, Nazi and KKK threats against Black employee of Pipeline Plastics, alleges EEOC Charge

December 5, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

According to a Charge of Discrimination filed with the EEOC against Pipeline Plastics, our client (“the victim”) was the only African American employee at Pipeline Plastics working in the yard on his shift. Pipeline employs very few African Americans. On July 23, 2024, the victim arrived at work at Pipeline Plastics in Levelland, TX to find KKK and white supremacist graffiti in his forklift:

According to the EEOC Charge, when he reported it to the Plant Manager (“the PM”), he said “yeah I saw that and I knew it was going to make you feel some type of way.” The PM could have wiped it off before the victim arrived so he would not have had to endure it, but chose not to do that. According to a sworn statement by an eye witness, the PM told the victim to “wipe it off” himself. The witness testified that after this incident, Pipeline failed to take any action to prevent threats against its African American employees. The Charge alleges the PM just told the victim, “don’t worry about it.”

Pipeline should have held an all-hands meeting informing employees that racial harassment would not be tolerated. The Charge states that Pipeline never did, and that Pipeline should have taken other steps to find the culprit and prevent further racially threatening harassment.

EEOC Filing alleges Gates Corp. ignored report of sexual harassment — tell us about your experience at Gates

November 18, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

An EEOC Charge filed by a former Gates Corp. employee in Poplar Bluff, Missouri alleges that Gates ignored a report of sexual harassment, causing injury to the point that the victim had to seek treatment.

The Charge against Gates alleges that a Lead employee sent complainant vulgar sexual texts which bragged that “I touch your butt.” See texts to the left.

The Charge includes a sworn statement from the victim’s coworker which stated that “she showed me vulgar sexual messages on her phone that he had sent . . . including one in which he said he could touch her butt,” and that the coworker told their Manager what the Lead employee was doing to the complainant.

Is someone at Coach Protecting an alleged Sexual Harasser?

November 8, 2024 | by Employment Law Firm

Todd Khan, Coach CEO

In a statement under oath a Coach employee testifies that Coach CEO Todd Khan and other top Coach executives are friendly with Luis Anzola, who is the subject of a Charge of sexual harassment filed with the EEOC:

3. Top executives at Coach, including CEO Todd Khan, treated Mr. Anzola as a personal friend. When they visited the store, they made a point to seek out Mr. Anzola to chat with him as soon as they entered the store. They appeared friendly and Mr. Anzola told me that they were.