A former employee has filed a lawsuit against a West Virginia nursing home alleging sexual harassment by another employee. An employee of the nursing home was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The former employee worked at the West Virginia nursing home from October 2016 through April 2021. While employed there, another employee allegedly made frequent sexual and romantic advances, along with inappropriate comments toward her. The former employee claims that the supervisors were aware of the inappropriate conduct by the other employee but did not take any action to address it.
The former employee alleges that the defendants’ actions created a hostile work environment and allowed sexual harassment to occur, in violation of the West Virginia Human Rights Act. She said she experienced embarrassment, humiliation, aggravation, emotional distress, and a loss of dignity. She claims that the actions were carried out with actual malice toward her, or were a conscious, reckless, and/or outrageous indifference to her health, safety, and welfare.
Additionally, the former employee alleges that she suffered both economic and noneconomic damages due to the other employee’s conduct and the nursing home’s failure to address the situation. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Issue:
Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. A complaint of harassment must be investigated promptly and impartially.
Discussion Points:
- Review your policies and procedures on preventing harassment, including sexual harassment. Update your policies as needed.
- Train staff on what is considered harassment and their role in promptly reporting all types of harassment to a supervisor or the compliance and ethics officer. Train supervisors and the compliance and ethics officer on their role when harassment has been reported to them by an employee. Stress the importance of nonretaliation. Document that these trainings occurred and file the signed documents in each employee’s education file.
- Periodically audit by anonymously polling staff to determine if they are being sexually harassed or experiencing discrimination and ask if they feel free to report such instances without fear of retaliation or retribution.
