The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won a $1.26 million dollar verdict in a sexual harassment case against Paul's Big M grocery store after proving 10 years of misconduct by the a former general manager during a two-week trial.
The lawsuit centered around a class of female employees, several of whom were high school teenagers, at the upstate New York grocery store, according to the EEOC press release. The award of $1,260,080 was comprised of $1.25 million in punitive damages and $10,080 in compensatory damages.
The offending manager, allegedly repeatedly sexually harassed females at his store until he was fired in 2010, even after pleading guilty to criminal charges of harassment in 2008, according to the EEOC. The EEOC claimed the sexual conduct included proposing sexual encounters with the mother of a teenage cashier, putting his tongue in a teenage cashier's mouth, and the grabbing and touching of female employees.
According to the EEOC, although complaints were made about the harassment, the working environment continued without remedy, forcing some female employees to quit. The EEOC stated that the verdict is a strong message to employers to ensure non-discriminatory working conditions, especially where teenagers are involved.
More information is available here.