Hari C

Former NFL Films employee Nadia Axakowsky has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in federal court in Camden, NJ. In the lawsuit Axakowsky alleges she was sexually harassed by several supervisors at NFL Films, over nearly 20 years as a voiceover announcer.

Axakowsky says she started at NFL Films in 1997 and the harassment began almost immediately. She said she was subjected to regular unwelcome sexual conduct and comments.

As mentioned in NJ, one supervising producer would ask Axakowsky out for dates and when she refused, he said she would lose her job if she did not eventually accept. Her next supervisor continued sexually harassing her for the remaining 13 years of her employment with NFL Films while working on the “Billboard Girl” program. She said the next producer, Glenn Adamo, groped her on numerous occasions, the suit alleges.

The lawsuit states Axakowsky seeks damages to redress the injuries she suffered “as a result of being discriminated against, sexually harassed, retaliated against by her employer solely due to her sex and for complaining of the ongoing harassment.”

A former McDonald’s employee is suing the company and the franchise owner for “extreme sexual harassment” and discrimination on the job.

As mentioned in The Huffington Post, La’Ray Reed worked at the franchise full-time between April and August 2015. La’Ray says she was referred to as a “boy-slash-girl” and relegated to using an unused bathroom that had been serving as a storage closet because she is transgender. She also claims her genitals were groped.

“I am transgender, but I have never dealt with anything like that, especially in the work field,” Reed said in a video released Thursday by the workers’ rights group Fight for $15, which is locked in a legal battle with McDonald’s to improve employee pay and conditions. She added that her hours were slashed, and she was eventually fired, after speaking to a manager about the abuse. “They actually took me off the schedule,” she said in the video clip. “So with that being said, it was even more stressful, even more depressing.”

Former employee, Ann Lai is suing Binary Capital LLC for harassing and defaming her after she resigned from the firm. Lai was a principal at San Francisco-based Binary specializing in data and analytics until May 2016. The allegations surfaced shortly after the company’s co-founder and chief executive, Travis Kalanick resigned last week.

In the lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County, Lai claims co-founder Justin Caldbeck texted her repeatedly after she left the firm, threatening her not to disparage or divulge information about the company and threatening to ruin her career, Bloomberg reports.

Lai left Binary because of its “sexist and sexual environment,” including inappropriate conduct with female staff at company outings, a female-specific dress code and statements about the attractiveness of Lai and other women such as startup founders, according to the lawsuit.

In the complaint, Lai said Caldbeck began pressuring her after she left the firm, after she had complained about the behavior and tried to keep her from talking about her experience at the firm. The lawsuit argues that Binary’s actions caused Lai economic and emotional harm. She is seeking civil penalties, attorneys’ fees and costs, economic and general damages.

Panda Restaurant Group, Inc. has reached a $600,000 agreement with the federal government after being accused of discriminating against workers who weren’t American citizens.

According to USA Today, the Chinese food chain required its employees who were legal permanent residents of the U.S. to reestablish their work authorization when their documents expired even though they didn’t ask the same of their staffers who are citizens, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The business also required non-citizens to show their immigration documents to verify again that they could work even though they’d already done so previously.

Under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, employers aren’t allowed to ask for workers for these kinds of documents when it’s based on their citizenship status or national origin.

Panda Express will have to pay $400,000 to the federal government, and create a $200,000 fund to provide back pay to affected workers. The company said it never intended to discriminate.

Owner of the Golden Girls themed cafe has been accused of sexually harassing his former assistant. The cafe owner, Michael J. La Rue was a close friend of the late actress Rue McClanahan, who played the bawdy southern belle Devereaux on the popular TV series.

His former personal assistant Henry Campbell began working for Michael J. LaRue and his upper Manhattan eatery Rue LaRue Cafe in October 2016.

As mentioned in the New York Post, the suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, says that LaRue “would discuss his preferred sexual preferences with [Campbell], and inform him how he was ‘in demand’ because he was a ‘top.’”

When Campbell complained to his boss about the behavior, LaRue retaliated by firing him in January, the suit says.

Michael Bell and DuRay Jones filed a lawsuit against the University of Maryland alleging they were discriminated against because of their race. The men are each seeking $1.5 million, according to the lawsuit.

The employees said the university fostered a hostile working environment, retaliated when they complained about misconduct and inflicted emotional distress.

As mentioned in The Baltimore Sun, the lawsuit alleges that university management treated Bell and Jones differently than their white counterparts. The university’s actions caused “depression, humiliation and loss of daily enjoyment of life,” according to the lawsuit. Christal Edwards, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said their lawsuit is just the latest symptom of a culture of racism on the College Park campus.

Abraham Goodwin alleged the university “continues to retaliate against me for exercising my rights to complain about racial discrimination that took place and continues to take place in the work place,” according to court documents.

Goodwin settled with the university, Edwards said.

Two former College of DuPage administrators have settled their wrongful termination lawsuits against the school, ending a protracted legal battle that began after they were wrongfully terminated in retaliation.

Thomas Glaser and Lynn Sapyta sued the college, former COD board Chairwoman Kathy Hamilton and former interim President Joseph Collins after they were fired in September 2015 for opposing Hamilton’s political agenda.

According to Chicago Tribune, terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but college officials said neither the school nor its insurance carrier would pay any money as part of the deal with former Treasurer Thomas Glaser and former Controller Lynn Sapyta.

“The College is pleased that this litigation has ended,” the school said in a statement released after the vote. “The result is clearly in the best interests of the College.”

Mitch Williams has been awarded $1.5 million in a wrong termination lawsuit after being fired by MLB Network for his alleged conduct at his 10-year-old son’s Little League game.

According to ESPN, Williams sued the network after it fired him from his analyst job in 2014, claiming he violated a morals clause. MLB Network said it respects the jury’s Tuesday decision but disagrees with its conclusions and is reviewing its legal options.

The website Deadspin reported Williams was kicked out of one game while coaching his 10-year-old son’s team after cursing and ordered a boy to hit an opposing player with a “beanball” in another game.

Travis Kalanick, Uber cofounder and CEO stepped down Tuesday has stepped down as the ride-hailing company’s top executive. Kalanick’s exit came under pressure after hours of drama involving Uber’s investors, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, who asked to remain anonymous because the details were confidential.

As mentioned by NY Times, five of Uber’s major investors demanded that the chief executive resign immediately. The investors included one of Uber’s biggest shareholders, the venture capital firm Benchmark, which has one of its partners, Bill Gurley, on Uber’s board. The investors made their demand for Mr. Kalanick to step down in a letter delivered to the chief executive while he was in Chicago, said the people with knowledge of the situation.

“I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight,” Mr. Kalanick said in a statement.

The banking giant Wells Fargo was slapped in December with a proposed multibillion-dollar class action in federal court in California brought by current and former employees of the bank who alleged retaliation for refusing to participate in the alleged scam.

Two wrongful termination lawsuits allege similar retaliation to that alleged by the California plaintiffs. According to Law360, Gayle Piper and Darlene Day each claimed that they reported the “troubling practices” to at least one supervisor and to the company’s ethics hotline, but that Wells Fargo failed to put an end to the alleged misconduct at their respective branches.

In September, Wells Fargo agreed to a $185 million settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office.

Wells Fargo agreed to pay $142 million to resolve 12 other putative class actions from customers alleging bank workers opened unauthorized accounts in their names or enrolled them in the bank’s services without their consent.