Limousine Dispatcher Awarded $700,000 in Sexual Harassment Lawsuit against Boss
A jury ruled in favor of 32-year old Geralyn Ganci and awarded her a total of $720,000 as compensation for the sexual harassment she faced at her workplace. The amount is the sum of $550,000 as compensation for the actual harassment and $170,000 as compensation for the attorney fees that the victim had to bear.
As per reports in The Island Now, Ganci’s sexual harassment attorney filed the lawsuit in 2009 which provided detailed descriptions of the incidents that had transpired and painted a picture of the hostile work environment she was forced to work in. The accusations were mainly against her former supervisor at the New Hyde Park Office of the Limousine taxi company – US Limousine Service, LTD. Ganci had worked here as a dispatcher.
Lawsuit accuses supervisor of repeated and unwanted sexual advances
The accused is Raymond Townsend who allegedly unfairly dismissed Ganci when she refused his sexual advances. The suit claims that Ganci’s mental anguish was further aggravated as she was friends with Townsend’s wife, who also happened to be employed at the same office, and had even attended their wedding ceremony.
Townsend – not smart
The complaint describes incidents of harassment that occurred over a whole year that finally ended with her dismissal. Townsend was supposedly obsessed with Ganci’s breasts and would often make sexual comments about her and to her, even with other employees present. The suit accused Townsend of calling and leaving sexually explicit messages in Ganci’s voicemail inbox.
Ganci said that the tone and the content of these messages mostly insinuated that she was not to reject Townsend’s sexual advances if she wanted to keep her job. Eventually Ganci was fired in 2009 after she rejected yet another unwanted sexual advance that Townsend made in the washroom of their office.
The defendant denied the accusations in court but was found guilty by a jury of his peers. US Limousine service, LTD has confirmed that Townsend has since been removed from their payroll.
Employment tribunal awards a zero hour contract worker £19,500 ($29,181)
A new issue has come to light following a recent sexual harassment case which has exposed the vulnerability of zero hour contract workers. In the case of S vs. Britannia Hotels LTD (victim’s identity withheld), the plaintiffs sexual harassment attorney was successful in securing a compensation as reported in Personal Today.
The problem, however, lies in the fact that zero hour contract workers are hesitant to raise their voices against sexual harassment as they depend on their immediate superior line managers to assign them work hours. An outstanding and experienced sexual harassment attorney, hired through USAttorneys.com can overcome this impediment. This is clearly unfair, since the manager may cut down the workers hours as retaliation for speaking up about the harassment.
This is basically what happened in the aforementioned case, where the victim tolerated sexual harassment from her line manager in the fear that she may not be given sufficient work hours if she made a complaint. The harassment complaint only surfaced when the 22-year old worker’s mother intervened.
