Customer behaving badly: Company pays $50K to settle third-party sexual harassment claim

Your frontline managers probably know the company has a legal obligation to protect employees from sexual harassment from co-workers.

But what if it’s a customer crossing the line? Just how far do employers have to go to protect employees from third-party sexual harassment?

This case involved Houchens Food Group, Inc., owner and operator of Pic-N-Sav grocery stores in several states and headquartered in Kentucky, and a female employee at an Alabama store who filed a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC).

The EEOC filed a lawsuit on the woman’s behalf.

Company allegedly ignored third-party sexual harassment

The EEOC’s lawsuit claimed several female employees at an Alabama location were subjected to frequent, unwelcome sexual touching by a regular customer of the store. The alleged harassment continued for at least five years, from 2015 to 2020. According to the suit, the women repeatedly complained to supervisors, but no action was taken.

The situation escalated. In June 2020, one employee called the police, who issued a no-trespass order to the man. Even so, managers purportedly failed to take action when the customer visited the store and continued to harass the women.

This amounted to violations of Title VII, which prohibits a hostile environment based on sexual harassment in the workplace — including third-party sexual harassment, the EEOC said.

Ultimately, the company agreed to pay $50,000 to one victim of the harassment to settle the lawsuit. Under a four-year consent decree, the company had to:

• Develop or revise policies and procedures to prevent and correct sexual harassment.
• Conduct annual training for employees and managers in the location of the alleged harassment and 15 other stores in Alabama.
• Submit to periodic EEOC monitoring for the duration of the consent decree. 

Info: Houchens Food Group to Pay $50K to Settle Sexual Harassment Lawsuit, 7/10/23.