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Clifford v. American Drug Stores8/22/2005
v. General Motors Corp., supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 576; Cal. Const., art. VI, ยง 13.)
Overwhelming evidence showed that Sav-On's de facto policy was that an employee's claim of sexual harassment would not result in action to protect the employee, or even a serious investigation, and would not lead to protection of the employee. Thompson suggested to Clifford that she would be blackballed if she reported Doose, and could kiss her career good-bye. Clifford's colleagues, general managers of other stores, confirmed that view of company policy. Mlenar told Clifford that Doose's sexual harassment of her was a matter between her and Doose. Loss prevention supervisor Colvin testified that the company did not investigate reports of sexual harassment. Perez did not report Clifford's claim to human resources. Thompson did not report it, and although Monreal reported it to the district loss prevention manager, no investigation ensued.
When Ryan reported the Diamond Bar complaints to Perez, he laughed, told her to take care of it herself, and failed to preserve videotaped evidence of the harassment. Stange also complained directly to Adams, but Adams merely told her to be glad that she was not put in ice cream, and when she complained to him about having been demoted to ice cream, he did not respond at all. Adams claimed that he knew nothing of complaints to Perez, until he learned of it in the depositions taken in the Stange litigation. An 800 hotline number allows employees to make anonymous reports, but nothing was done in response to Carranza's call to the number.
Apparently company policy provided that an investigation would be undertaken only if a lawsuit was threatened or filed. Sav-On failed to conduct a reasonable investigation into the complaints by Ryan, Carranza, or Stange, until their attorneys wrote to White, who then caused the company to retain Conway to investigate the claims.
As we have discussed, it appears the de facto company policy was to retaliate against the complaining employee. Although Baier claimed that the policy prohibits retaliation, the actions of management demonstrated otherwise. As Maddocks explained, " e're like police officers, when they get one of ours we get one of theirs." Clifford was denied a bonus, subjected to extraordinary scrutiny, accused of stealing, subjected to pranks, unreasonable demands, and delayed paychecks, unnecessarily recalled from vacation, and called stupid or an idiot by her manager. She was subjected to a Catch-22 demand that she pay I.O.U.s before receiving her paychecks, to bizarre claims by Weber that he did not receive the many schedules she sent him, and to extraordinary demands for numerous revisions. Finally, rather than simply provide additional help to accommodate Clifford's restricted working hours for the two months of the restriction, Sav-On transferred her to a less desirable, understaffed store that required Saturday work and a
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