Former Lower Burrell Midas worker wins $510K in lawsuit

Managers repeatedly sexually harassed 28-year-old female auto technician

A former technician at a Midas auto shop in Lower Burrell won a $510,000 verdict award in federal court on Tuesday against the corporate shop owner and two male managers on her claims that they sexually harassed her repeatedly during her employment in 2016.

A jury awarded Hannah Harris, 28, of Vandergrift, $200,000 for emotional distress and another $300,000 in punitive damages, both against Auto Systems Centers, an Ohio company that owns the Midas shop and others around the country. The verdict includes another $10,000 against one of the supervisors, district manager Trent Kight.

Lawyers representing Auto Systems, Mr. Kight and Ken Shick, the store manager also found liable, did not respond to a request for comment.

Pittsburgh attorney Robert Bracken, who represented Ms. Harris, said in numerous court documents, at trial and in an interview that his client endured repeated sexual harassment from Mr. Shick and Mr. Kight to the point of physical abuse. He said Mr. Shick, her immediate boss, subjected her to unwanted sexual advances and namecalling, and that when she complained to the district manager, Mr. Kight, he did the same thing.

Exhibits in the court record and at trial included many examples of harassment, some of it documented in audio and video recordings, according to Mr. Bracken.

Mr. Shick, for example, once grabbed Ms. Harris by the back of the neck and shoved her head down to look at a car’s brakes that she mistakenly thought were worn out, then called her a vulgar name, according to the evidence.

In April 2016, male employees presented Ms. Harris with a stick spraypainted black with the words “Hannah Beater” carved into it, according to plaintiff’s exhibits. Court records and testimony indicated that Mr. Shick encouraged the employees under him to engage in the harassment.

In another incident, according to the court records, Mr. Shick walked over to Ms. Harris while she was on the floor cleaning, grabbed his crotch and suggested that “while you’re down there” she should have sex with him.

The jury also heard accounts of Mr. Shick calling Ms. Harris insulting names and saying in front of customers that she didn’t know what she was doing because she is a woman.

In addition, according to court exhibits, Mr. Shick told her that she was “asking for it” from the male employees because she wore a tank top and jeans in the shop, and he commented to her about her body and the sex acts he wanted to perform with her.

Ms. Harris said she finally reported Mr. Shick’s conduct to his boss, Mr. Kight.

“Rather than reprimand Shick, Kight joined him in sexually harassing [Ms. Harris],” Mr. Bracken said in court papers.

In early 2016, Mr. Kight climbed into the back of a customer’s car, which Ms. Harris was pulling out of the garage, and asked her where the two of them should go to have sex, according to the plaintiff’s evidence. He also asked her what she looked like under her clothes because he thought she had a nice body, she said, and texted her similar messages.

In one text message, according to the evidence, he said she was sexy and that he was the man “who can make your toes curl.”

Part of the plaintiff’s evidence, Mr. Bracken said, also included a secret recording Ms. Harris made of Mr. Shick threatening her job in an effort to keep her from complaining about how she was being treated.

Ms. Harris is now working at a different auto shop.

The trial began last week before U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon.