Teenage restaurant worker awarded $7.65M in sex harassment lawsuit
Need a reason to refresh your anti-harassment training with your managers? Take a look at this story.
A teenager who formerly worked at a Chipotle in Houston was recently awarded $7.65 million this week after suing the company for sexual harassment, according to a story on Business Insider.
According to a news release from the teen’s attorney Benjamin L. Hall, the victim was working at the restaurant in Oct. 2013. Hall said managers at the restaurant groomed the teen and encouraged her to participate in unprotected sex while at the business and other places. The teen quit her job because of the sexual abuse, a representative of the teen said.
The teenager — who was 16 at the time — said she was harassed by her supervisors and had sexual intercourse with her 26-year-old manager more than 40 times, Houston’s FOX 26 News reports. The age of consent in Texas is 17.
The teenager was awarded the nearly $8 million following a two-week trial.
According to the victim’s attorney, the jury also agreed with the plaintiffs that Chipotle and its supervisors had knowledge of the sexual assaults and took no action to stop them.
According to Hall, the victim’s ex-manager has fled the country and is currently in Mexico.