New York Sexual Harassment Lawyer Blog

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and race discrimination against a family-run fish supplier in Brooklyn Federal Court. The suit alleges that African-American employees were subjected to racial slurs and jokes, including the n-word. The complaint alleges that the owner of the company ordered an employee to "go get it, ------. Other allegations involve sexual harassment. Two company officials are accused of "regularly grabbing or pinching male employees' buttocks and pushing their penises against employees' buttocks." The EEOC attorney handling the suit, Sanu Chandry was quoted as saying, "the stunning facts of this case remind of us of an ugly time in our nation's history."

The second sexual harassment suit against Southern Hospitality, Justin Timberlake’s Upper East Side restaurant was recently filed in the New York State Supreme Court. The complaint alleges that Timberlake’s business partners, are guilty of “vile and discriminatory conduct” including, specifically, that Timberlake’s partners viewed pornography while locked in a room with the plaintiff and laughed at her when she began to cry.

The complaint also alleges race discrimination in that a hostess who was given the nickname, “that ghetto girl at the door” was terminated by the company.

There has been no comment on this issue by Southern Hospitality or their publicist.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, Inc. will pay $255,000 in order to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit. As part of the settlement, it will also investigate anonymous sexual harassment claims, conduct more employee training and report instances of sexual harassment claims for three years.

Cracker Barrel was accused of allowing sexual jokes and lewd remarks to be made to seven female employees at one of its locations in Cedar Bluff, TN. The company did not take action when the women complained to managers and the Cracker Barrel complaint line. According to a recent article in The Tennessean, Cracker Barrel decided to settle the sexual harassment suit in order to maintain a good relationship with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

This is not the first time Cracker Barrel was accused of allowing workplace discrimination practices to occur at one of its locations. In 2006, Cracker Barrel paid $2 million in a consent decree to resolve a race discrimination and sexual harassment suit involving 51 employees at three Illinois restaurant locations.

Sexual harassment can include any unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or verbal or physical conduct that creates an offensive or sexually charged work environment for employees of either gender.

The New York Times recently reported that Nascar has settled a multi-million dollar race discrimination and sexual harassment suit with a former employee. Among the egregious conduct claimed by Mauricia Grant, was that two employees exposed themselves to her and that she was called “Nappy Headed Mo” and “Queen Sheba” by other Nascar employees.

The conduct to which Ms. Grant was subjected is not uncommon. In many workplaces, employment discrimination is something that has not been eradicated. In fact, discrimination in the workplace is showing no signs of slowing down. EEOC statistics from recent years demonstrate this fact. The increase in claims filed for both employment discrimination and workplace retaliation claims confirm our long-standing belief that employment discrimination is a disease that must be eliminated from the workplace.

A recent Sports Illustrated article noted that a former female employee has filed a $225 million lawsuit against NASCAR in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, citing sexual harassment, race discrimination and wrongful termination.

Mauricia Grant, a former Nationwide Series Technical Inspector, alleges atrocious behavior from her co-workers, such as calling her "Queen Sheba" and "Molicious," making repeated references to the Ku Klux Klan and, in one instance, two male employees exposed themselves to her. NASCAR has suspended the two accused employees without explanation.

The plaintiff called NASCAR an “old boys club” and went to great lengths in describing the insular nature of the company. “They need to stop hiring ignorant sisters, cousins and uncles [of theirs] and start hiring qualified, educated people to work their billion-dollar business,” Ms. Grant said in an interview.

NASCAR has responded, saying that the plaintiff never filed a complaint, and therefore could not blame NASCAR for not being able to stop the behavior. The CEO of NASCAR said that he had not been aware of the situation and that the claims would be immediately investigated.

A recent article in The New York Times reported on the increase in complaints of discrimination in the workplace. The article went on to state that, “federal job discrimination complaints by workers against private employers rose by 9% last year, the biggest annual increase since the early 1990s.”

Based on the article, one might reasonably conclude that job discrimination has intensified. Another reasonable conclusion might also be that more individuals who suffer discrimination in the workplace have been able to observe, from their experiences, that those who complain of employment discrimination do not suffer the results of reporting employment discrimination to the same extent they did previously.

There is a reasonable likelihood to believe that it is not necessarily the increase in discriminatory conduct that caused the number of individuals who report employment discrimination to be greater than before. Instead it could be that individuals have learned that reporting discriminatory acts does not necessarily produce retaliation. The strong workplace retaliation laws that our lawmakers have enacted throughout our country have, in large part, effectively protected those who report discrimination from the retaliatory conduct they feared in the past.