BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) - Two women have filed lawsuits against Buffalo Wild Wings in Bozeman contending nothing happened when they reported their manager harassed them.
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports (https://bit.ly/1noUUIg) that Elizabeth Rogers and Tara Slover filed the lawsuits against the restaurant in U.S. District Court in Butte last week.
The two women each filed two claims of intentional discrimination and one claim of negligent hiring and retention. Both women reported inappropriate actions by the restaurant’s general manager.
The owner of Bozeman’s Buffalo Wild Wings, Brad Anderson of Billings, was issued a summons last week. The Minneapolis, Minn.-based company declined to comment.
According to the lawsuit, Rogers and Slover started working at the restaurant in 2008. The general manager was hired in 2010.
Rogers contends that starting in June 2012, the general manager sought a relationship and began sending her repeated texts, asking to come to her home or for her to come to his.
Rogers said she made it clear she wasn’t interested in a relationship and asked him numerous times to stop texting her. Rogers said she reported the general manager’s behavior to two managers between June 2012 and December 2012.
The lawsuit said neither manager investigated. Rogers said that the general manager escalated the harassment by grabbing her buttocks, pulling her hair and slapping her buttocks with a towel.
Slover said that the general manager repeatedly slapped her buttocks with a towel and touched her buttocks and breasts.
The lawsuit says Rogers and Slover reported the harassment to another manager in March 2013, but the manager refused to do anything.
In April and May, the two women filed gender-discrimination complaints with the Montana Human Rights Bureau. Buffalo Wilds Wings then initiated an internal investigation. But the lawsuits say the general manager wasn’t fired and returned to manage the same women he had harassed.
The Montana Human Rights Bureau investigated and determined discrimination had occurred. In December, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued the women a right-to-sue letter.
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Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com
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