No More Love, at Love's Truck Stops

The Arizona Republic is reporting that Love's Travel Stops and Country Stores, Inc. agreed to pay $70,000 to some of its Arizona cashiers who complained about sexual comments from customers including suggestive "hand touching."  According to the article, supervisors ignored cashier complaints. 

There will be no more love at Love's.  I can feel a country song coming on . . .I'll spare you.

Judge Turner's a Creepy AV-Rated Jurist

Judge N. James Turner, a family law Judge for the Ninth Circuit in Osceola, Florida has been removed because his Honor thinks massaging, hugging and kissing staff is appropriate and his court staff and the presiding Judicial authorities disagree.  This is from the report at the Orlando Sentinel:
"The state agency that polices judges Friday expanded its case against Orange-Osceola Circuit Judge N. James Turner, accusing him of massaging, hugging and kissing the women in his office. The new allegations also accuse Turner of taking cell phone calls while on the bench, checking his Facebook page during court proceedings and unexpectedly getting up and walking out while court was in session.
Those allegations are tacked onto another set that were filed against him in July. They accuse him of a series of campaign violations, including being an open supporter of Democratic candidates in other races in 2008 while conducting what was supposed to be a nonpartisan campaign for judge.  Those charges are pending.Turner hasn't been on the bench since Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. last month ordered him to stop working. Perry did not explain his actions at the time. Neither would Turner. m Friday's disclosure, though, provides a general explanation.  Although he has been on the bench just 16 months, Turner has had four secretaries, called judicial assistants. Some judges can have one judicial assistant throughout a career."
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The publication, Matindale-Hubbell is a lawyer listing and rating service that pre-dates "Super Lawyers." Turner describes himself as a "A-V rated" lawyer and jurist.  This ought to tell you how reliable lawyer ratings are.  He also lists himself as an author of two articles on Employer Liability for Sexual Harassment in the workplace in the Florida Bar Journal. 

Workplace Sexual Harassment-Part Four--the Prosecutor

According the Billings Gazette, the Yellowstone County Proscutor, Dennis Paxinos (the irresistable guy in the pic) allegedly can't keep his hands to himself.  A former legal assistant, Stacie Muhlbeier filed a sexual harassment complaint against Paxinos who "was cleared" of wrong doing by an outside investigator even though he admits "consensual sexual contact." 

According to the account Paxinos left a trail of suggestive emails, and despite being "cleared" the investigation suggested he be disciplined.  The Gazette went to some lengths even filing a lawsuit to obtain the information identifying which of their public officials was the subject of the complaint.

The story is an interesting one because the reporters at the paper took the time to lay out the details of the interaction and the sort of dunderheaded handling of the investigation and its aftermath.  I do sympathize with Paxinos in one sense, the events took place in 2003 he's still paying a personal and professional price 7 years later.   But it looks like he can blame himself, because it seems pretty clear that he participated in a deliberate effort to withhold information from the public. 

I know exactly what that's like.  If the Bad Lawyer had confronted his law office management practices, particularly his tax nightmares and demons timely, he might not be writing this blawg and bitching and moaning about the law from the sidelines.

Workplace Sexual Harassment-Part Three, Rotten Law Bosses

My pal Chirs sent this story along, it's a report at eboss.com concerning a lawsuit against the law partner in the picture, Robert Eicher and his 300 member Virginia-based law firm, Williams and Mullens (their slogan is: "where every client is a partner," and) where the plaintiff a young woman of Viet Namese descent was employed.  According to the lawsuit:

Mr. Eicher, 'repeatedly engaged in inappropriate sexual behaviors and made ethnic slurs. Shortly after (Hanh Nguyen) Allgood’s hire, Eicher approached Allgood in her cubicle, introduced himself and asked if she was from Viet Nam. When Allgood responded in the affirmative, he then gestured toward her genital area and asked whether her vagina was horizontal or vertical.'In what the lawsuit refers to as the 'cucumber incident,' Eicher allegedly put a cucumber in his pants pocket and then hugged and pressed the cucumber up against Allgood’s thigh desipte her attempts to pull away from him. Allgood complained to management and other employees, several of whom told her that they were also victims of the cucumber incident.

The complaint states that Eicher 'often walked around the firm dressed as a doctor showing his gloves and asking female staff if they wanted to be ‘examined.’ Eicher also had several sexual relationships with employees and publicly described his sexual encounters with them.'"

Oh, and there's lots more garbage about the bosses at this "law" firm, that finds it's way into Ms. Allgoodf's complaint.  This is the classic "hostile work enviornment" fact patttern, in case you were wondering.

 Frankly, I probably wouldn't pass this story along, but there have been 7 other EEOC complaints about William and Mullen filed by employees in recent years, according to the eboss story, lending a strong note of credibility to the allegations; and, it is always instructive when the so-called guardians of the rule of law, are the perpetrators.  I wonder how many of these Williams and Mullens folks sit on their bar association legal ethics panels? 

Hmmmmm.

Workplace Sexual Harassment-Part Two

In the Baltimore area they have this small chain of 50s-style restaurants called the Double T Diner.  The Baltimore Sun is reporting on a former Double T Diner waitress who filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit claiming that the son of one of the owners, Spyros Korologos, is getting all-grabby and vulgar.  To give you a better sense of what she's talking about I'll quote from Nick Madigan's story:

"The suit by the 27-year-old woman is the latest in a decade-long string of legal actions -- including two suits by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- against the Double T chain by former waitresses who claimed they were sexually harassed by managers and other employees. Most of those suits were settled out of court, in one case for $200,000.


In her suit, the woman names Spyros Korologos, 26, a manager at the diner where she worked for five months in 2007, on Mountain Road in Pasadena. It's one of several restaurants owned by the Korologos family.  The woman, who was engaged to be married at the time, says she was 'publicly subjected to intimidation, ridicule and insult on the basis of her sex,' 'unwanted sexual advances,' and 'profane, sexually graphic and vulgar language.' Korologos did not return a call Thursday seeking comment, and two lawyers who represented him in previous cases said they no longer do.  On Sept. 7, 2007, the woman says in her suit, Korologos 'violently grabbed'  her crotch, causing her 'physical injury and emotional distress.'  She quit her job six days later and pressed criminal charges. According to the complaint filed in Anne Arundel County District Court, Korologos not only fondled her but made a habit of inquiring how many sexual partners she'd had and was 'always foul with the way he talked.'

On April 17, 2008, he was given probation before judgment on a fourth-degree sex offense, meaning that he could avoid conviction if he adhered to the terms of probation. He did not, according to a report from the state Division of Parole and Probation, which said he failed to show up for court-ordered psychological therapy or to return calls from the therapist. He also stopped attending the required weekly meetings with his probation agent, the report says.As a result, Korologos, who was living with his parents in Ellicott City, was found to have violated his probation and was convicted last May of the sex offense against the woman, who now lives in Florida and is not being named because of Sun policy. The woman is seeking $6 million in damages. In her suit, she says Korologos has 'a long history of similar illegal conduct in the workplace,' but that he has not been 'discharged or disciplined.'

In other lawsuits, women who had worked at Double T diners said managers and other employees had locked them in freezers, poured hot sauce on their arms and, to amuse themselves, carved vegetables into anatomically suggestive shapes."
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There have been numerous times over the decades where I've dealt with nearly identical sorts of workplace hosrshit like that described in Madigan's reporting.  I think any reader of Bad Lawyer will conclude that the Bad Lawyer is not a prude, but I do not understand workplace sexual harassment anymore than I understand molesting children.  Certainly we meet and form realtionships including intimate relationships with people we meet at work.  I met the Blonde Super Lawyer while practicing law, that is not sexual harassment so let's define sexual harassment in the workplace:  there are two specific types of sexual harassment in employment law:


Quid Pro Quo Harassment: "Something for something;" this is the "you do something for me and I'll do something for you" type of exchange. This occurs when a job benefit is directly tied to an employee submitting to unwelcome sexual advances. For example, a supervisor promises an employee a raise if she will go out on a date with him, or tells an employee she will be fired if  she doesn't sleep with him. Quid pro quo harassment also occurs when an employee makes an evaluative decision, or provides or withholds professional opportunities based on another employee's submission to verbal, nonverbal or physical conduct or a sexual nature. Quid pro quo harassment is equally unlawful whether the victim resists and suffers the threatened harm or submits and thus avoids the threatened harm.

Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment: This occurs when an employee is subjected to comments of a sexual nature, offensive sexual materials, or unwelcome physical contact as a regular part of the work environment. Generally speaking, a single isolated incident will not be considered hostile environment harassment unless it is extremely outrageous and egregious conduct. The courts look to see whether the conduct is both serious and frequent. Supervisors, managers, co-workers and even customers can be responsible for creating a hostile environment.

In this day and age what delusion is a business owner, or manager operating under to believe that an acceptable term of employment includes putting up with the kind of shit the Korologos-family inflicts on its waitresses or permits its employees to engage in?  It's ridiculous, childish and such a distraction from commerce!  Here's hoping that the message get's through--this time.

Workplace Sexual Harassment

The Tennesseean is reporting on a lawsuit filed by two male employees of Embraer Aircraft Maintenance Services Company, a Brazilian Corporaton with operations near Nashville, alleging sexual harasssment at work.  These claims are unusual:  first, the charges mirror previously filed complaints;  and, secondly, the harassers include a supervisor who apparently thought it was a cool thing to disrobe and undulate suggestively against glass walls separating workstations.  What's unclear from the article is the gender of the harassers, which the "comments" to the article, amusingly, explore. 

Sexual harassment is not funny, it is usually pathetic, it's illegal, and let's face it, work is difficult enough without this sort of crap going on.  At the same time, the efforts of harassers do take on an absurdist air on occasion.  I pause, and ask myself, wtf?