Burger King employee was sexually harassed by her manager at work in NC, lawsuit says

A lawsuit accuses a Georgia-based company managing a Burger King restaurant in North Carolina of permitting sexual harassment and discrimination toward a female employee.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on March 7, states that North Georgia Foods, a company that manages restaurants in Georgia and North Carolina, subjected the female employee to “a hostile work environment based on her sex.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed the lawsuit on the employee’s behalf, is seeking monetary relief for the employee over lost wages, as well as emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life, the lawsuit said. It also “seeks injunctive relief against the company to end any ongoing harassment or hostility and to take steps to prevent such unlawful conduct in the future,” the agency said in a news release.

The employee worked at a Burger King location in Murphy, NC, which is about 110 miles west of Asheville.

An attorney for North Georgia Foods was not listed in court documents and a company spokesperson could not be reached for comment by McClatchy News.

Allegations of harassment

According to the lawsuit, the hostile environment the employee faced at the restaurant was the result of the behavior of a male assistant manager between August 2018 through July 2019. The lawsuit accuses the company of allowing the man “unfettered access” to her, which he used to make “vulgar sexual comments” and exhibit “threatening behavior and … unwelcome groping and touching” in the workplace.

The lawsuit also accuses the man of threatening the employee, telling her that she would be fired or that he would retrieve her home address from a company computer if she informed higher management of his behavior.

“The defendant did not take action to stop the harassment but instead reduced (her) hours until she was removed from the schedule completely in June 2019,” the EEOC said in a news release. “The company refused to communicate with (the employee) and later refused to reinstate her employment.”

The manager is accused of making sexual comments or touching the female employee in a sexual manner at least once a week. In some instances, the manager would tell her that he needed to speak with her privately about a work matter in order to get her alone “in a location where he could prey upon her,” the lawsuit said.

The employee continually objected to the behavior, both by asking him to stop and by physically leaving the area, the lawsuit said. She also notified a female assistant manager and asked to move to a different shift so she wouldn’t have to be alone with the male assistant manager during the early hours of the day, the lawsuit said.

The female manager did not change the employee’s shift, but encouraged her to tell the general manager about the harassment she experienced and said she would also notify higher management herself, the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, the employee was afraid to speak to higher management because she was concerned that they might respond “in a hostile manner.” The EEOC accused the company of failing to “take any action to stop the harassment,” the lawsuit said.

‘Abusive work environment’

The harassment continued, despite the employee’s repeated complaints, and became so “severe and pervasive” that it created an “abusive work environment,” the lawsuit said. The company “knew or should have known” of the harassment, but failed to stop it, the lawsuit said.

In response to the employee’s complaints, her manager began reducing her work hours, causing her a loss of earnings over time, according to the lawsuit. She was eventually removed from the schedule and effectively fired in June 2019, leading her to file a charge of discrimination shortly after, the lawsuit said.

The female employee gave birth shortly after she was fired, and the lawsuit says she was not reinstated after being cleared to return to work despite asking managers to re-hire her.

According to the lawsuit, North Georgia Foods violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits sexual harassment, retaliation, and pregnancy discrimination” in the workplace, the EEOC said in a news release.

“An employer violates federal law when it fails to address sex-based harassment in the workplace,” Melinda C. Dugas, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Charlotte District, said in the news release. “Title VII guarantees employees the right to work in an environment that is free from sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination, and it prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for complaining of such unlawful conduct.”

This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Burger King employee was sexually harassed by her manager at work in NC, lawsuit says."