Blog

Guess co-founder and chief creative officer Paul Marciano is stepping down after the completion of a company-commissioned investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

As mentioned in the Chicago Tribune, the allegations of sexual misconduct first became public when model Kate Upton said in a Time magazine interview that Paul Marciano grabbed her breasts during a Guess photo shoot nearly eight years ago. She also stated that he harassed her by showing up at hotels where she was staying and texting her inappropriate comments.

Soon after the allegations, a special committee of the Guess board and an outside law firm launched an investigation, which looked into several reports of inappropriate comments and texts along with unwanted kissing and groping.

The Los Angeles-based fashion company revealed it has settled lawsuits with five of Paul Marciano’s accusers for a total of $500,000.

Attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents four of those women, said “they are pleased with his stepping down as board chair but disappointed he’ll stay on in other capacities.”

If you have been sexually harassed in the workplace, please contact the attorneys at the California Employment Legal Group today for a free consultation with an experienced employment lawyer who will clearly explain your rights and options under the law.

Former Kraft Heinz employees have filed two separate lawsuits accusing the Kirksville plant of racial and gender discrimination.

According to Kirksville Daily Express the first lawsuit was filed by an African-American citizen, originally from Liberia, in March 2018. The plaintiff is accusing the Kirksville plant of terminating her because of her pregnancy, race and national origin and the emotional distress led their child being stillborn.

″(The plaintiff)’s alleged tardiness and other false, trivial accusations about her job performance were a pretext to conceal the fact that she was being terminated due to her pregnancy, race and national origin. (The plaintiff), on the threshold of giving birth to her first child, experienced extreme mental anguish and emotional distress over the loss of her job and job benefits, including health care insurance,” documents stated.

A second lawsuit was filed by a former employee accusing the company of racial discrimination. As mentioned in the Kirksville Daily Express, the plaintiff claims a line supervisor intentionally assigned him undesirable jobs, criticized him in front of other workers and repeatedly referred to him as a “boy.”

If you have been retaliated against or discriminated at work, please contact the attorneys at the California Employment Legal Group today for a consultation with an experienced employment lawyer who will clearly explain your rights and options under the law.

One of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Morgan Freeman has been accused of sexual misconduct by eight women, including allegations of “unwanted touching” and harassment, in a report published by CNN.

CNN interviewed eight women, and other people who say they witnessed inappropriate behavior by Freeman on film sets, while promoting his movies and also at his production company, Revelations Entertainment.

As mentioned in Yahoo News, a young production assistant on “Going in Style” shared with CNN that the actor would make comments about her figure and clothing on a daily basis, as well as touching her back. Because of the harassment, she said she decided to leave the movie industry.

Freeman denies the allegations and in a statement to TheWrap said “Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows I am not someone who would intentionally offend or knowingly make anyone feel uneasy. I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected — that was never my intent.”

Ingrid Avendaño worked as a software engineer for Uber from February 2014 to June 2017. She recently filed a lawsuit against the company after she experienced sexual harassment, racial discrimination and pay inequity while working there.

According to Avendaño’s lawsuit claim, Uber did not do enough to address allegations of harassment. As mentioned in CNN, Avendaño said that an engineer “repeatedly made unwelcome, demeaning comments about women” in front of her and other employees — and that human resources did not address it when she reported him.

In addition, Avendaño faced fallout afterward, and was “isolated and ignored by many male Uber managers and other employees” who had worked with the man.

CNN reports Avendaño is asking in the lawsuit to be compensated for lost wages and benefits, and for damages related to emotional distress. She wants to be reinstated to her job at Uber.

Avendaño, who is Latina, also made claims of pay inequity in her lawsuit, and said that female and non-Caucasian engineers were paid less and promoted less than white male counterparts.

Jeanette Ortiz was a general manager for 14 years at Chipotle Mexican Grill on Shaw Avenue across from the Fresno State campus. However, in January 2015, Ortiz was terminated after being accused of stealing $626 in cash from the restaurant’s safe, stated a lawyer for Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. There was even video evidence to prove Ortiz’s theft, the lawyer said.

As mentioned in the Fresno Bee, Ortiz denied stealing the money and asked her bosses at Chipotle to see the video evidence, but the company destroyed the video evidence, shared Fresno attorneys Warren Paboojian and Jason Bell, who represent Ortiz in the wrongful termination case she brought against the fast-food giant.

Fresno County Superior Court jurors ordered Chipotle to pay Ortiz nearly $8 million in damages, ruling that she was not a thief, but was a victim of a scheme to fire and defame her for filing a worker’s compensation claim for a job-related injury to her wrist caused by carpal tunnel syndrome.

An Albertsons grocery store in San Diego violated the rights of Hispanic employees with an unwritten “English-only policy” forbidding workers to speak Spanish around non-Spanish speakers — even when conversing with one another during breaks or helping Spanish-speaking customers.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Albertsons Companies, Inc., on Thursday in federal court. As mentioned in Los Angeles Times, the lawsuit accuses the Idaho-based chain of discriminating against Hispanic employees at San Diego-area stores, harassing them and subjecting them to a hostile workplace because of their race or country of origin.

“Employers have to be aware of the consequences of certain language policies,” Anna Park, an attorney for the commission’s district office covering San Diego County, stated. “Targeting a particular language for censorship is often synonymous with targeting a particular national origin, which is both illegal and highly destructive to workplace morale and productivity.”

Binary Capital LLC was hit by a sexual harassment scandal when a former employee sued the company for harassing and defaming her after she resigned from the venture capital firm. Revelations were also made that co-founder Justin Caldbeck made unwelcome sexual advances toward female startup founders.

According to the lawsuit against the firm, the allegations go much deeper than previously known. As mentioned in Bloomberg, Ann Lai, who was a principal at the San Francisco-based firm until May 2016, claims further incidents of bad behavior by Binary Capital’s founders, Justin Caldbeck and Jonathan Teo, in a new filing. In the ongoing lawsuit, Lai lleges that the two founders “demanded headshots of female job applicants to evaluate their attractiveness. They discussed holding a no-clothes retreat for employees, she said. They eventually held a poolside event at a Napa hotel, where attendees wore bathing suits, and an underage intern was given alcohol, according to the complaint.”

Lai, who earned three degrees from Harvard University before spending about a year at Binary Capital, said she left because of its “sexist and sexual environment,” according to the suit.

Following the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the Times Up movement, Hollywood’s Screen Actors Guild called for the ban on auditions in private hotel rooms and residences, where many reported incidents of sexual harassment and assault have occurred.

“To help protect members from potential harassment and exploitation, SAG-AFTRA released today a Guideline that calls for an end to the practice of holding professional meetings in private hotel rooms or residences,” the group said in a statement.

As mentioned in The Wrap, the change comes after accusations of decades of sexual harassment and assault have been lodged against Weinstein. The film producer has been accused by nearly 90 women in various cities around the world, though he has consistently denied any nonconsensual sex.

The industry has been scrambling to put systems in place to help curtail the abuses of power by men. Women in the industry, such as Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay and Natalie Portman, started a legal defense fund in conjunction with the #TimesUp movement to fight sexual assault, harassment, discrimination and abuses of power in the workplace.

Uber has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by two women engineers who accused the ride-services company of gender discrimination and race discrimination.

As mentioned in Reuters, the settlement states Uber also agreed to reforms to its system for compensation, reviews and promotions.

The settlement compensates for financial and emotional harm to about 285 women and 135 men of color.

On Oct. 24, Roxana del Toro Lopez and Ana Medina, who described themselves as Latina software engineers, filed an action in the Superior Court, followed by another three days later in the district court alleging classwide gender and race discrimination.

The lawsuit said Uber’s employee ranking system was “not based on valid and reliable performance measures” and favored men and white or Asian employees. As a result they lost out on earnings, promotions and benefits, they added.

A former employee for the Atlanta Hawks filed a lawsuit against the team, accusing them of engaging in a pattern of discrimination against white employees.

According to the Washington Post, Margo Kline worked as a community development coordinator for the team and was fired in March 2017 after five years with the Hawks. She subsequently filed a charge of race discrimination and sex discrimination and retaliation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which in December gave her a notice of a right to sue.

In her lawsuit, Kline singled out her supervisor, Hawks external affairs director David Lee, who she described as “a black male,” for promoting “a culture of discrimination against white individuals” and accused Lee of the following:

• “Being dismissive and exclusionary” toward white employees, particularly white women.
• “Making jokes about white culture.”
• “Making it clear that he wanted to hire black individuals” and not “white females” when vacancies arose in his department.
• “Expecting and requiring more of white individuals, especially white females,” than black employees under his supervision.
• “Promoting and hiring less qualified black individuals” over white people, particularly white women.
• Being more apt to “offer raises and promotions” to black employees.

Kline asked for punitive damages, recompense for her fees related to her legal action and a jury trial.