An interesting case that we recently resolved was for a client who’s a single mother of two small children, who was a minimum wage earner, who desperately needed her job. She was working at a retail store with only one supervisor. That supervisor was a substantially older man who pursued her relentlessly for over a year. He finally wore her down where she agreed to have dinner with him, assuming that it would satisfy him and he would leave her alone. However, that evening he took her to dinner and he got her drunk and they had sexual relations. From that point on that scenario repeated itself over the course of several months where he pressured her to continue to have this relationship. He threatened her employment. She attempted to go over his head at one point and report him to a district manager. However, that district manager didn’t respond to her and then contacted her immediate manager and advised him that she had reached out.
And, basically, she had no avenue for any hope or any recourse, and she was forced to continue to endure the harassment for several more months. This affected every aspect of her life, she was forced to drop out of school. It affected her personal relationships, until finally, she had no other choice but to quit. At that point, she reached out to us and thankfully we were able to help her through mediation, and we were able to get her over two years of salary, which made a substantial difference in her life and gave her some justice to move on.
