Just prior to Christmas, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland denied in part a motion to dismiss filed by Ledo’s Pizza & Pasta and permitted a 16 year old plaintiff to move forward on her sexual harassment claims, but not her claims of disparate treatment and national origin discrimination. Lopez v. BMA Corp., No. DKC 13-2406, 2013 BL 354687 (D. Md. Dec. 24, 2013).
Plaintiff Rosa Lopez filed suit as parent and next friend of her daughter, LL. LL is a female of Latin American descent, specifically Salvadorian. Defendant BMA – doing business as Ledo’s Pizza & Pasta – is a restaurant in Temple Hills, Maryland. LL worked as a server and cashier at Defendant’s restaurant. Soon after beginning work, LL was told by her manager that she was not allowed to speak Spanish while at the restaurant. LL complained to her mother Rosa, her immediate supervisor. Rosa then complained to the head of the restaurant, Bobby Syed. Mr. Syed – a Bangladeshi – replied that Spanish shall not be spoken anywhere in the restaurant, including the areas not patronized by customers. This “no-Spanish” policy was enforced for the entirety of LL’s employment. Following enactment of this policy, Defendant’s owners and managers frequently conversed in a dialect of Bangladeshi, their native language.
LL also alleged differential treatment due to her nationality, consisting of alleged racist comments made by Mr. Syed and that she was required to pay for work shirts while her Bangladeshi co-workers were not. Further, LL was also allegedly subjected to sexual harassment from a twenty-six year old co-worker by way of his sexual advances and comments. Management was allegedly informed, and did nothing. As a result of the allegedly hostile work environment, LL claims that she was constructively discharged.
The court partially granted the Defendant’s motion to dismiss, deciding that LL failed to state a disparate treatment claim. The court held that even if a no-Spanish policy was enforced while her Bangladesh co-workers could converse in their native language, LL could not point to an adverse employment action resulting from this practice.
The judge did, however, find sufficient evidence that management knew or should have known of the repeated sexual advances toward LL, which caused her claim to survive. The parties differed about whether the alleged behavior was so pervasive or severe as to alter LL’s terms of employment, and whether management should be held liable. The court explained that a sexually hostile work environment must be both objectively and subjectively offensive in order to be actionable, and ruled that LL met this requirement. LL’s claim was bolstered by her contentions that she continually reported the harassment to restaurant managers, who did nothing.