WASHINGTON: At a company “team building” exercise, Janet Orlando was forced to walk to a wall, bend over and was spanked with a metal sign by her male colleagues. Four years after she was a sexual harassment case against Alarm One Inc. Orlando was finally able to receive her court settlement. She had been a saleswoman for the Anaheim-based security company when she was sexually harassed. Following the incident, she sued the company and a jury awarded her $1.7 million against Alarm One Inc in April 2006, but she was unable to pick up the settlement. The company and its insurance carriers agreed to a settlement figure of $1.4 million, but later declined to pay, saying the deal needed a bank willing to finance the costs. A jury ruled that the settlement stands and she is entitled to receive the payout. Jurors had awarded Orlando $10,000 for economic loss, $40,000 for future medical costs, $450,000 for emotional distress, pain and suffering, and $1.2 million in punitive damages. Alarm One Inc. then appealed but jurors hearing the retrial deliberated for less than an hour and found Alarm One, Carolina Casualty Insurance and Monitor Liability Managers Inc in breach of their contract with Orlando and again ordered them to pay her the settlement. When the verdict was read aloud at a Fresno, California, courtroom, Orlando cried. She told reporters that she felt as if she had been sexually assaulted by her co-workers. “You feel like they just keep raping you and raping you,” she said. “It's almost like they are doing it on purpose.” According to women's rights groups in the United States, the case shows that justice can be met through the appropriate channels. They said that it should be taken by companies as a sign that they are unable to do as they please with their female workers. Linda Thomas, a Los Angeles attorney who has taken a number of sexual harassment in the workforce cases in recent years, told Bikya Masr via telephone that “the workplace should be safe and when it isn't it just turns into a farm where people don't think there are rules and laws. I am so glad that the jury awarded this high amount because it will make others think twice.” BM
