$110K Sex Harassment Penalty For Toms River Towing Company: AG

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A single mother who resigned after her boss, the owner of the Toms River towing company where she worked, asked her repeatedly about her body part shaving habits and on one occasion told her he would bend her over the desk and spank her if she was in a bad mood has been awarded $57,920 for emotional distress and lost wages by the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, state officials announced Monday.

Neal K. Prasad, the owner of Statewide Roadside Assistance of Toms River, also has been ordered to pay the state of New Jersey an additional $52,350 in penalties and costs under the final decision issued by Craig T. Sashihara, director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, according to a news release from state Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino.

Porrino said the woman, a single mother of three, was a dispatcher for Statewide. She was hired by the company in June 2013 at $10 per hour, and her pay was increased to $12 per hour before she left in early 2014 over "work-related issues," Porrino said.

After leaving Statewide, the woman was unable to immediately find another job that provided comparable pay, so she took a lower-paying job. She and her children were subsequently evicted from their home and forced to live in temporary housing for a time.

According to a finding of probable cause issued by the Division against Statewide and Prasad, the woman then worked briefly for a medical transportation company before returning to Statewide later in 2014 at a higher wage of $13 per hour. She told the Division Prasad asked her to return. Prasad insisted she “begged” him to rehire her, Porrino said. She resigned just a few months after returning, in July 2014.

In the complaint she subsequently filed with the Division on Civil Rights, she alleged not only a hostile work environment but constructive discharge – workplace conditions so intolerable that an employee has no choice but to resign.

The woman said she understood that in working as a dispatcher for a towing company, some coarse language might be expected as part of the daily discourse. But Porrino said she was the focus of daily verbal and physical sexual harassment that an administrative law judge called so “severe and pervasive” that “no reasonable person” could be expected to tolerate it.

Among other things, Porrino said, Prasad was accused of inappropriately rubbing his body against the woman’s body, inappropriately touching her, shouting obscenities at her and subjecting her to remarks that were "sexual and demeaning" in nature.

She told investigators Prasad asked probing questions about her body-shaving habits, the sexual preferences of her and her co-workers and the performance of their sexual partners. She said Prasad also made comments to her and a co-worker on more than one occasion about his wife’s sexual proclivities.

On one occasion, the woman testified, Prasad followed her into the Statewide facility garage and instructed her to "give the big guy a kiss." When she refused, he kissed her on the cheek anyway. Prasad advised her on another occasion — when he observed that she seemed to be in a good mood — that had her demeanor not been pleasant, he would have bent her over the desk and spanked her, Porrino said.

In another incident, the woman said Prasad complained to her that she had an obligation to "give me something" because "I’m hiring you back with all this money."

During the investigation by the civil rights division, Prasad maintained that the victim was not sexually harassed, but rather had resigned and concocted harassment allegations because she knew she was going to be fired for repeated lateness.

Porrino said the award announced Monday was an update to an initial judgment in June by an administrative law judge that awarded only $7,500 for emotional distress. That occurred in part because the administrative law hearing was disrupted when Statewide's attorney claimed a medial emergency that led to an adjournment, and then never returned phone calls or emails in the month that followed, Porrino said.

"On the first day of that hearing, Statewide presented a single witness to counter the victim’s allegations – a male former Statewide mechanic," Porrino said. "Nearly a month later — and after noting that all attempts to reach Statewide’s lawyer by telephone and e-mail had failed since the still-unexplained emergency medical adjournment – the ALJ closed the hearing record."

In significantly increasing the woman’s award for emotional distress beyond that awarded by the judge, Sashihara wrote that the increase to $50,000 was warranted given the "severity of the conduct," prior awards for emotional distress made to other prevailing complainants in hostile work environment cases and the impact of being harassed on the victim’s emotional state and family life.

"The conduct in this case goes straight to the core of the sexual harassment discussion taking place in every corner of our nation right now," Porrino said.

"Upon reporting for work each day, this employee was put in a very difficult and stressful circumstance. She was economically dependent on her job for the sake of her children, and regularly harassed on that job – in the form of overtly sexual comments, inappropriately suggestive invitations and unwanted physical touching — by someone who held sway over both her hourly wage and her continued employment."

"Her abuser was not only her immediate supervisor, but the company owner. To whom was she going to report his bad behavior?" Porrino added. "In the end, she was dependent on her harasser for her livelihood, and therefore the quality of life of her family. Her decision to not tolerate such treatment and pursue a complaint was a courageous one, and we encourage other harassment victims to come forward as well."

"Let this case serve as a message to company owners and workplace supervisors throughout New Jersey. There simply is no place for the kind of abusive and sexually-harassing behavior that occurred in this work environment daily, and we will hold accountable any employer who engages in such conduct, or who tolerates it by others."

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