Health center to pay $55K for allowing harassment

A federal judge has ordered Scott Medical Health Center to pay $55,500 in the first-ever sexual orientation discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In a three-page order dated Nov. 16, the Scott Townshipbased pain management and weight loss services provider was found responsible for “creating, facilitating or tolerating” sex harassment, which can involve harassment related to sexual orientation, as well as sex or gender stereotypes.

The health center is expected to provide to the commission a written report with any complaint or allegation — whether formal or informal, verbal or written — of sex harassment made by any employee for the next five years.

Attorneys for the EEOC, in a statement released on Monday, hailed the ruling as historic and said it set precedent that sexual orientation is a protected status in the workplace. The commission said it has stepped up protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals under sex discrimination provisions as a national priority.

Though sexual orientation is not specifically protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

of 1964, which governs workplace discrimination, theEEOC interprets sex discrimination to include harassment against gay and transgender employees.

“The pursuit of this case through trial and judgment demonstrates the unwavering commitment of this office to ensuring that LGBT workers are not subjected to harassment or other forms of unlawful discrimination,” said EEOC regional attorney Debra Lawrence of the agency’s Philadelphia District Office. “This case is one of many that point to the persistent and widespread problem of anti-LGBT bias in the American workplace.”

The lawsuit, filed in March 2016 in the U.S. District Court for Western District of Pennsylvania, claimed Dale Baxley, a telemarketing employee at Scott Medical Health Center, was taunted about being gay by a manager in the summer of 2013.

The EEOC brought the lawsuit while investigating a number of claims against the same manager, Robert McClendon, from female employees. The EEOC complaint said Mr. Baxley quit in August 2013 after nothing changed when he complained to the president.

In court filings, Charles H. Saul, a Pittsburgh-based lawyer for the health center, denied the harassment and said the employer was “blindsided” by the lawsuit. The center was unaware of Mr. Baxley’s sexual orientation, Mr. Saul wrote, and the commission did not have the authority to bring the claim.

In the ruling this month, the federal district judge, Cathy Bissoon, required Scott Medical Health Center pay $50,000 in damages — the maximum penalty for such violations against employers of the health center’s size — and $5,500 in back wages to Mr. Baxley.

Mr. Saul could not be immediately reached for comment.