Lawsuit claims St. Louis County officials sexually harassed wor...

This goes on more often then people think and it cuts across the public and private sector equally.

How many women over the years have been exposed to comments or gestures that today would serve as lawsuit material. Plenty! If you have ever worked in a construction office, bar, or mostly male dominated profession, you've been exposed. If every woman exposed filed suit, the courts would be tied up for centuries. Most just brush it off and try to gain some mutual respect along the way. Some bonehead guys will never get it.

I did work in construction for nearly 20 years. It wasn't the guys on the crews that were the problem, it was the men at the top that caused the problems. They didn't like their favorite subs being questioned about costs, they'd lose out on a hunting/fishing trips. Snowmobiling in the UP, bow hunting out west. There's room for a lot of improvement for white male management. Big surprise, a lot of women don't find you irresistable, want to drink or sleep with you, we just want to do our jobs. My sympathies to this lady, its lousy when you have to leave your job due to somebody elses bad behavior. Been there done that.

Pay her off and be done with it. That is what she is looking for.

Payola wrote:

Pay her off and be done with it. That is what she is looking for.

Sometimes a lawsuit is the only way to get these kind of peoples' attention.
When the person being harrased gets nowhere with their initial complaints to management and are essentially told.....we don't believe you or care that it happened to you, how else will the person or persons be held accounable for their actions?
There might be a monetary amount stated in the lawsuit but I believe most times it's there to make a LARGE statement.

Agreed, and to put other companies on notice that they could see something like this in their future if they don't clean up their act. They can keep their crude jokes and comments for the Saturday night guys only poker game. There's a time and place for everything as my mom used to say.

I guess now we know where the jerks from the mines went after they were exposed for their assault of women just trying to earn a living. Must be the mentality of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Bunch of freakin hillbillies...

If the proof is there, let the chips fall where they may. If it is only hearsay, likewise. If it turns out she is correct, it should be easy to prove (especially if she has copies of emails) and there should be a multitude of others willing to testify and file their own suits. If it is sour grapes from being let go and a money grab, time will tell. Until the evidence is produced, the witnesses are examined and the trial is finshed, anything else is speculation.

She was asking for it. and now she is asking for it $$$$$$
You can not have it both ways.

At first I was thinking it sounded like the case was blown out of context because the first details the author mentions is:

"The suit claims she was repeatedly asked to "go out dancing, drinking and partying" with various county commissioners."

I would not call that sexual harassment, asking a coworker to a social event after work does not constitute sexual harassment.

The claims of being asked to have sex sound legitimate. I'm just confused why the author didn't start with those.

If there are public employees sexually harassing (and it certainly appears that there are), they should be terminated from their jobs. Voters pay enough in taxes without having to pay for lawsuits just because they can't behave themselves. If they're doing stuff like this, they're too stupid to perform the jobs they were hired/elected to do. Another fine waste of taxpayers money.

Marybelle wrote:

She was asking for it. and now she is asking for it $$$$$$
You can not have it both ways.

If you're not joking.......who have you harrassed lately? Your statement isn't much different than what a rapist tells the courts as a defense.
Are you really a woman marybelle.....your statement sounds more like a mans.

Obviously, the good old boys club here needs a kick in the ***. But if this has been going on for 10-15 years, what took so long to deal with this?

Wasn't this a movie with Charlize Theron? North Country was about a woamn that alleged and won her harassment suit?

Are we to assume that if a woman makes an allegation, it is assumed to be true?
If a man makes an allegation and a woman is not there to refute it, is he still wrong?

This went on for 14 years and she is just now filing suit?$50,000? Why so little, she lost and entire career? I think that there was a lot of blame to go around. I'll wager she's not innocent either.

mark d wrote:

I guess now we know where the jerks from the mines went after they were exposed for their assault of women just trying to earn a living. Must be the mentality of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Bunch of freakin hillbillies...

Oh yes, and you sound so highly educated. "Must be the mentality". You, sir, are an idiot. I know many miners. If you are judging us by the movie North Country you need to do a little more research than watching Charlize Theron bounce around the tv set. The sexual harrassment of the era were part of that era. I know many women who work at the mines sans harrassment. Sexual harrassment happened at West Point, the Whitehouse, in the military, the list goes on and on. Are THEY a bunch of hillbillies too? Don't comment on something when you obviously know NOTHING about it. Educate yourself before you call a community stupid.

I wouldn't call anyone in Minnesota a hillbilly. That sounds like something some say about the south. We might have rednecks, but I wouldn't call a certain area rednecks. I'd judge each person on their own merit when it comes to that. I wouldn't judge someone in the south for being a hillbilly either - I'd judge them the same way on their own merit. We go up north near Lake Superior often and I've not seen one redneck or hillbilly. If anything they're smarter up there because they manage to live on some of the most beautiful land anywhere.

One of these times we're going to go up to Wisconsin and experience some of the beautiful land up there. We have some beautiful vacations and never leave the state. Don't need to.

In the St. Louis County area there are quite a few dandies that are working and getting good pay where respectable intelligent people could be working. Why is that? It seems as if being a jerk in St. Louis County is one of the job qualifications.

mark d wrote:

I guess now we know where the jerks from the mines went after they were exposed for their assault of women just trying to earn a living. Must be the mentality of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Bunch of freakin hillbillies...

No matter what the problem...the solution is always the same...out of court settlement. Go trial lawyers!