The following blog entry is written to illustrate an example of a sexual harassment case. Reviewing this kind of lawsuit should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this sexual harassment case and its proceedings.)
INJURIES: Osprey left her position at AO in mid-February 2004. Osprey is not working in a comparable position. She sought recovery for her emotional distress.
Facts:
In April 2006, plaintiff Julie Osprey, 52, won a jury verdict against her former employer, AO Inc., in the amount of $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. In response to AO’s motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the Superior Court reduced the compensatory damages award by $10,000, representing the jury’s award of lost wages.
Osprey and AO then attended a mediation in July 2006, after which both parties entered into a settlement for $1.4 million. Osprey claimed she never received any payment after the settlement, as she claimed AO and its insurance carriers, challenged the settlement contract.
Osprey sued AO, asserting breach of contract and seeking to recover the $1.4 million settlement amount.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.
Osprey’s initial complaint dated from Oct. 7, 2003, when she was hired to work for AO’s Fresno office as a salesperson. After 10 days, Osprey was promoted to field supervisor and worked with a team of salespeople. Osprey claimed that every morning, before the teams went out to sell, there would be a meeting of the field supervisors and a meeting of the salespersons. At the salesperson meetings, a field supervisor would lead the meeting and the salespersons were given training and motivated to go out and sell alarm systems door-to-door. The meetings had a pep rally atmosphere, with yelling, chanting and cheering. At other offices of AO, the motivational techniques used at the meetings included bonuses, singing in front of the group, pies in the face, eating baby food, wearing diapers and spanking. Osprey claimed that some of these techniques, including spanking with an AO sign or a competitor’s sign, were imported to the Fresno office, which opened in July 2003. Osprey alleged that employees would be spanked for arriving late at a meeting or for losing a sales competition and that Osprey herself was spanked a few times while working for AO, the last time occurring on Jan.14, 2004. Osprey claimed that though the spankings later stopped by way of formal complaints by other employees, she was injured by the Jan. 14 spanking and denied medical care.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.