The case of In re:
Beth V. New York State Office of Children & Family Services (OCFS) involved
a decision by the New York State Workers Compensation Board that settlement
proceeds from an employment lawsuit against OCFS should offset any Comp payments
based on the same set of facts. What’s significant about this case was how the
employer mishandled an allegation of sexual harassment. To make a long story
short, Beth, an OCFS youth division aide, was working in the kitchen, where M,
a male resident, was assigned under a facility work program. One day, Beth
confiscated a notebook that M had brought with him to the kitchen, apparently
because he had told her he was writing suggestive notes about her and had made
crude, sexually explicit gestures. She gave the notebook to the youth division
aide on duty. When M discovered this, he threw a fit.
After the incident, Beth told various supervisors and fellow
employees that she felt unsafe, uncomfortable, and feared physical and sexual
harm from M. A few days later, while she was logging out from work, he accosted
her from behind, choked, punched, and raped her at knifepoint. M then forced
her to turn over her keys to her Jeep and abducted her from the camp. When he
stopped to make a call at a pay phone, Beth escaped and reported the crime to
the police. She filed a lawsuit against OCFS and eventually settled for
$646,000, of which she ended up with $430,000 – the amount that the Workers
Comp carrier claimed it had a right to offset.
I can tell you that from my years of trial experience that
if OCFS were a private employer, the punitive damages would have been in the
millions. The bottom line: Take all
claims of sexual harassment seriously! During
my career, I represented three women in Beth’s position – and all of these
cases were ugly. In two of them, a decent investigation and follow-up by the
employer could have prevented the horrible outcome.