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Clifford v. American Drug Stores8/22/2005
ifford a poor performance review, the first she had ever received in her nine years with the company. When she asked him why he was doing this to her, he replied, "Payback is a bitch, isn't it?" She understood him to mean that he was getting back at her for not accepting his advances.
Mlenar approved the review, and when Clifford tried to speak to him about the poor evaluation, he said, "Benissa, that's your review, that's it. I don't want to hear it." So she told him about the payback remark and about Doose's having touched her inappropriately many times since 1994. Mlenar replied that was between Doose and her.
Clifford did not get a raise that year or an increase in her bonus. Doose, however, was promoted and transferred to the highly profitable Diamond Bar store soon after the evaluation, and Clifford was assigned another market manager. After that, Clifford continued to see Doose at the monthly district meetings. Although she tried to stay away from him at the meetings, Doose would approach, brush her hair with his hands, and touch her shoulders.
Clifford complained to Michael Perez, the district loss prevention manager, whose responsibility it was to receive such complaints. She was too embarrassed to recount everything Doose had done, but she told him that Doose had touched her many times inappropriately and had made very lewd comments to her. Perez listened as a friend and told her that he knew that Doose had a reputation, but he did nothing about it, even though company policy required him to report it.
One day in 1997, when Clifford encountered Doose while shopping at the Diamond Bar store, he told her that some women there had been complaining about him, and asked her not to say anything about his history with her. Because she was concerned for her career, Clifford agreed not to say anything.
In the late Fall of 1997, Sav-On employee Judy Stange approached Clifford and told her that Doose had done things to her and others of a sexual nature, and that the company was retaliating against her because of her claims. Stange asked Clifford for her support, because she felt the company did not believe her, and it would help to have a general manager come forward to reveal similar experiences. Stange also requested help for two other employees, Deena Ryan and Tammy Carranza.
Stange told Clifford that in retaliation for her having reported the sexual harassment, she had been removed from her position in the photo department, had been written up 30 times in the past month, although she had never been written up before, and that when she had an epileptic attack at work, she was dragged to the back of the ice cream area and left there for hours before the paramedics were called. She told Clifford that Ryan's hours had been cut and her manager keys taken away as a consequence of her claims, and that Carranza had been transferred to a store with a difficult com
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