Store let customer come in and grope workers, even after cops got involved, feds say
Soon after a woman began working at an Alabama grocery store as a cashier, a customer would regularly come in and touch her — as he had been doing to other female employees for years, according to a federal lawsuit.
The relentless groping, described as sexual in nature, involved the customer touching female employees’ stomachs, sides and hips, as well as approaching them from behind and tickling them at Pic-N-Sav in Evergreen from 2015 to September 2020, a complaint filed in court says.
Store supervisors were made aware of the sexual harassment through numerous employee complaints but are accused of allowing it to take place, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
One store supervisor told the cashier, who became “fed up” with the repeated touching, that there wasn’t much that could be done, as they wouldn’t “ban (the man) because he was a grandfather and regular customer,” the complaint says.
So the cashier called police in June 2020, and officers issued a trespass notice to him — but the store still let him in for the next few months, according to the EEOC, which filed the lawsuit.
Now, Houchens Food Group, Inc., which owns and runs Pic-N-Sav grocery stores, has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle the lawsuit accusing the company of allowing sexual harassment at the Evergreen store, the agency said in a July 10 news release.
McClatchy News contacted an attorney representing the company for comment on July 11 and was awaiting a response.
“An employer has a duty to protect its employees from a hostile environment of frequent or serious sexual harassment when it knows of the ongoing harassment,” Bradley Anderson, district director of EEOC’s Birmingham office, said in a statement. “It is an unacceptable and unlawful practice to ignore complaints and continue to allow such misconduct, even from a customer.”
Houchens Food Group was accused of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes workplace sexual harassment illegal.
The $50,000 the company will pay as part of the lawsuit settlement will go to one victim, who wasn’t identified in the news release, the EEOC said.
As part of a four-year consent decree, Houchens Food Group has agreed to create or review its policies and procedures in relation to stopping and correcting sexual harassment at work, according to the agency.
The company must also host yearly training sessions for employees and managers at the Evergreen store and 15 other Pic-N-Sav locations in Alabama, the EEOC said.
“This consent decree sends a message to employers that they cannot ignore complaints of sexual harassment of its employees by a customer or other third parties,” Marsha Rucker, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Birmingham District, said in a statement.
Houchens Food Group, headquartered in Bowling Green, Kentucky, owns multiple Pic-N-Sav stores in several states.
Evergreen is about 80 miles southwest of Montgomery.
Company refused to hire women as truck drivers since 1986, feds say. Now it’ll pay up
Culver’s managers and employees harassed gay worker and another with disability, feds say
Restaurant manager touched young female workers, asked them to sleep over, CA suit says
