Sexual harassment complaints can prove costly for employers who ignore the allegations or fail to act in a timely manner.
Arkansas Business has reviewed several lawsuits in recent years involving sexual harassment allegations. Here’s what we found:
w On Feb. 27, former Pulaski County Coroner Garland Camper filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Little Rock against Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines and the county for forcing him to resign in April 2011 over allegations of sexual harassment.
Camper said in the lawsuit that Villines had allowed other sexual relationships among the county’s white employees, but he was forced to quit because he was black.
In the county’s response, it said that the sexual harassment allegations involved a woman who said Camper hired her only after she had sex with him in the morgue in January 2011, and the demands for sex continued after she was hired. The county said in its filing that Camper admitted that he had sex with the woman. And the county’s records show that Camper and the unidentified woman sent 467 text messages between Jan. 8, 2011, and Jan. 29, 2011.
Camper wanted to personally settle with the woman in an attempt to keep his job, the county said. But Karla Burnett, the county’s attorney, told Camper that she would still investigate the woman’s allegations because "the liability to the county would be significant if [Camper] were to sexually harass another employee in the future."
The case is pending.
w On Aug. 11, Rock-Tenn Co., a Conway packaging maker, agreed to
pay $160,000 to settle a sexual ha-rassment lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Com-mission, according to an EEOC news release. The EEOC sued the firm in 2008 for failing to prevent the sexual harassment of women employees by co-worker Steve Birch.
"Although the company investigated the complaint, the EEOC said the harassment continued," the news release said. "The EEOC also contended that one of the women had been forced to resign due to the ongoing harassment."
w On Sept. 28, the EEOC sued a Big Lots store in Fort Smith in U.S. District Court in Fort Smith for allegedly failing to stop store manager Robert Muntz from sexually harassing women after they complained about his conduct, according to EEOC court filings.
The EEOC alleges that Muntz, who was fired in July 2010, "made inappropriate sexual comments and requests for sexual favors," the news release said.
Big Lots denied that it did anything wrong and asked that the case be dismissed, according to its court filings. The case is set for trial on Dec. 10.
w Between April 1, 2008, and June 11, 2009, Dillard’s Inc. of Little Rock paid a total of $610,000 to settle two claims with the EEOC involving allegations of sexual harassment.
On April 1, 2008, the retailer settled a sexual harassment lawsuit for $500,000 for 12 female employees in two states who were sexually harassed by the same assistant store manager, Scot McGinness, according to an EEOC news release.
The EEOC said Dillard’s knew McGinness sexually harassed women at a California store but failed to take appropriate action to stop it.
Instead, Dillard’s transferred him to a managerial position in a Colorado store and kept quiet about his past, the EEOC said.
He was fired only after police were contacted when McGinness "physically and verbally sexually harassed an 18-year-old high school senior," the EEOC said.
As part of the settlement, Dillard’s agreed to provide "significant" sexual harassment training to employees and management officials, including training for managers on how to properly investigate sexual harassment allegations," the EEOC news release said.
On June 11, 2009, Dillard’s agreed to pay $110,000 to settle a same-sex harassment lawsuit brought by the EEOC in Miami on behalf of two men who worked at Dillard’s Fashion Square Mall in Orlando, Fla.
The EEOC charged that James Hines, an area sales manager, "engaged in verbal and physical sexual harassment of a male sales associate and a young dockworker when the supervisor exposed himself, propositioned the men and made sexually explicit and derogatory comments," an EEOC news release said.