WINSTON-SALEM N.C. Burger King Corp. has agreed to pay $85,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency said earlier this week.
The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, charged that a female employee, who was 18 at the time, was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment at a Burger King unit in Clemmons, N.C., from December 2006 to March 2007.
In the lawsuit, the EEOC asserted that the restaurant’s general manager subjected the employee, Kathleen Joyner, to “unwelcome touching, overt sexual advances and frequent requests for sexual favors.” The suit also claimed that Joyner complained about the harassment to her assistant managers, who did not take appropriate action to stop the conduct.
Miami-based Burger King said in a statement that it “cooperated with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and is retraining the employees in the Clemmons and the Winston-Salem restaurant on anti-harassment policies and procedures. The general manager involved in the incident is no longer employed by the company.” The former manager had also worked at the Winston-Salem unit.
Burger King also agreed to provide the EEOC with semi-annual reports of all written and verbal sexual harassment complaints received from employees at its Clemmons restaurant.
Lynette A. Barnes, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Charlotte, N.C., district, said, “The EEOC will continue to be aggressive in litigating egregious harassment cases, especially where the employer’s failure to stop the harassment results in harm to a teenager or young adult.”
In a statement released after the settlement was reached, Burger King said the company “has a strong nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy. It is the policy of the company to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, sex, age, religion, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. BKC prohibits and will not tolerate any such discrimination or harassment.”
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].