Real Story of Retaliation

Julia was hired as a safety and security technician ("SST") for a steel manufacturing plant. From the first day of her employment, Julia was subjected to sexually offensive behavior that occurred on a near-daily basis. Julia's co-worker, Gregory, would grab her buttocks and rub his body against her, blow kisses at her, wink at her, tell her his wife was not home and ask her to come to his house, stare at her as she walked into the office and shake his head in disbelief, lick his lips at her, and hold onto her hand and not let go when Julia would hand him something. Julia also endured incidents when Gregory said that he wanted to bite her breasts. Julia would tell him to stop and otherwise let him know that she did not welcome his behavior.

From the beginning of her employment, Julia reported the incidents of harassment to David, her boss. David would respond that he would talk to Gregory; however, Gregory continued the sexual harassment until Julia finally decided to send a written complaint to David. Although the sexual harassment ended with her written complaint, Julia believed that she was retaliated against because it was made obvious to her that her job would be in jeopardy if she did not go along with sexually suggestive and offensive behavior and that, if she did go along with this behavior, she would advance more quickly.

Julia was singled out and disciplined by Gregory and David while other employees who did the same things were not disciplined. Julia believed that she was not considered for promotion to the secretarial opening in retaliation for reporting the harassment. David took away Julia's job responsibilities of assigning job duties to co-workers on her shift and training new employees. Julia was denied or delayed receiving training, while other SSTs were not. She learned that David had meetings with other SSTs and did not inform her of the meetings.

Julia sued Gregory and David in civil court for retaliation because she had reported sexual harassment. The court decided that Julia had offered enough evidence where she could go to trial and a jury could potentially find in her favor.

Peterson v. Buckeye Steel Casings (1999), 133 Ohio App.3d 715, 729 N.E.2d 813.