5 downtown janitors sue for $4.5 million, say supervisor snapped bras, slapped buttocks

[Sam_Fields]

Source: Oregonian/Oregon Live

The sexual harassment and abuse occurred between the hours of 5:30 p.m. and 2 a.m. -- when the Bank of America Financial Center was empty of most of its white-collar workers -- according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/04/five_downtown_janitors_sue_for.html

[1939]

1. Which is why

you out source your janitorial work to a separate company so that when this happens (and it is very common) you can claim that your contract forbids you from exercising direct supervision and therefore are not responsible for the supervisor's conduct and that they have to sue the janitorial contractor.

[Sam_Fields]

2. Their lawyer may have something that pierces the corporate veil

Such as supervisor employees knew what was going on and did nothing. Any way the corporate insurance will most likely make a payout to settle the lawsuit.

[csziggy]

6. They are not suing BOA - they are suing the building management

From the link in the OP:

The Oregonian/OregonLive isn't naming the supervisor because he hasn't been charged with any crimes. He did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Both he and the company the lawsuit identifies as his employer -- Terrace Tower U.S.A., which owns the building -- are listed as defendants. Terrace Tower U.S.A. didn't return a call seeking comment.

<SNIP>

The five plaintiffs worked at the Bank of America building, at 121 S.W. Morrison St., for as few as five months to as many as 10 years. The suit claims that Terrace Tower U.S.A. was aware of the harassment and abuse no later than fall 2014.

All five plaintiffs were employed by ABM Onsite Services - West, according to the suit. By November 2015, their employer had transferred them to jobs in other buildings, the suit states.

Why wasn't the supervisor charged with a crime? Did the employees ever try to report it - and if they did were they ignored by the cops?

[1939]

7. They are suing Terrace Tower USA

but the actual employer of the supervisor and the plaintiffs is an outfit called ABM Onsite Services which is probably a guy in a cheap office somewhere with a desk and a phone who contracts for janitorial work from various buildings and who hires people and sends them off to work. Terrace Tower of course can mount a pretty good defense that they had no control over the hiring, firing, and discipline of the employees of ABM Onsite Services and that the suit should be against them. The lawyer knows that ABM has zero assets where Terrace owns a building.

[csziggy]

8. Yeah, you sue everyone and hope the deep pockets get to pay

That happened when I had to threaten a lawsuit once. I didn't want to sue the property owner but he had to be part of the case since he hired the responsible party- and as the lawyer put it he was the deep pockets.

In the end we sort of settled the case. I got no money (which I didn't want) but the crop dusting pilot who had been spraying my property instead of the land next door was fired and the property owner stopped growing crops that needed to be air sprayed.

The one time I saw the pilot he reminded me of the one in Independence Day.

[Democat]

3. "Downtown" is not descriptive on a site like DU

Maybe you could add "Oregon" to the thread title.

[Sam_Fields]

4. Sorry the sites say to only put the title. I do have the Oregonian as the source.

[Democat]

5. I guess if that's the rules, but 90% of people will have no idea where

Based on the title.

[Judi Lynn]

10. I tried putting something in parenthesis in the last year or so, got pounded to a pulp, in a way.

I was told that that line is exactly meant to replicate the headline as it is, with no alterations.

There was a time years ago we could put an additional word in parentheses to help focus the LBN headline, as you suggest, but that doesn't work for me, now, and I haven't seen it done by anyone else in LBN, either.

[Judi Lynn]

9. His parents could have done a better job raising the little fella. He needs to simmer down. n/t