A former HR manager for poultry processor Allen Harim Foods’ discrimination and retaliation claim will move forward after a Delaware district court judge on Aug. 5 denied the company’s request for summary judgment (Gray v. Allen Harim Foods).
The plaintiff, who worked in multiple HR manager roles at the company’s Harbeson Poultry Plant, said she faced age and sexual orientation discrimination and retaliation for taking time off to care for her wife, alleging a violation of both the Family and Medical Leave Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
When the employee returned to work, management allegedly moved her to a vacated corporate safety manager role — which paid $17,000 less than her HR role and included worse benefits, court documents said.
Additionally, when the plaintiff was allegedly coerced into taking the corporate safety manager role, management informed the worker that a new employee had been hired for her position while she was out on FMLA leave. The new employee was 30 years younger than the plaintiff.
While the defendants argued, among other points, that the plaintiff ultimately quit Allen Harim voluntarily, the court considered the issue of constructive discharge. Citing Pennsylvania State Police v. Suders, the judge noted that the Supreme Court held that “in the realm of constructive discharge, an employee’s resignation is treated as tantamount to an actual termination.”
At one point, management allegedly told the plaintiff they needed to put “the right people” on the “right seats of the bus,” court documents note. The alleged discrimination she faced along with the FMLA violation make a “plausible constructive discharge claim,” the court stated.
Gray is one of several lawsuits involving HR managers that have made recent news.
In July, a construction firm paid $50,000 to settle a retaliation claim from an HR professional who investigated sexual harassment claims. In the case, EEOC v. Pro Pallet, LLC, management allegedly discouraged the plaintiff from investigating several sexual harassment claims and subsequently excluded her from meetings, among other actions.
The construction company was alleged to have “created working conditions sufficiently intolerable that a reasonable person in [the HR manager’s] circumstances would have felt compelled to resign her/his/their employment.”
Last month a woodworking and cabinetry company also settled a retaliation claim: it agreed to $165,000 for three employees, including an HR professional. Per the complaint filed in EEOC v. Third Bench Holdings LLC, an HR manager investigated claims that Hispanic workers were being treated differently than non-Hispanic workers. She allegedly faced harassment for doing so, before she was ultimately fired.
