Payne & Fears LLP Obtains $10,000 Judgment Against Unsuccessful Plaintiff in Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Case

After a lengthy and contentious 2 ½-year court battle, Payne & Fears secured for its client a payment of $10,000 from a plaintiff as part of a judgment in a case involving severe allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation. In the complaint, the plaintiff alleged multiple instances of sexual harassment by a coworker over an eight-year period, and subsequent retaliation by the client’s human resources department. Throughout the case, however, the client consistently maintained that the coworker and the plaintiff had been involved in a consensual eight-year relationship. Over the course of the heavily-litigated discovery phase, Payne & Fears obtained love letters, greeting cards, gifts, and corroborating testimony supporting the client’s version of the case.  Payne & Fears also secured an expert analysis of the parties’ personal cell phones, which resulted in the recovery of several deleted text messages from Plaintiff confirming the existence of a consensual relationship, as well as unlawful surreptitious recordings of conversations that the plaintiff had made at work. After filing a cross-complaint for common law and statutory privacy violations based on the secret recordings, Payne & Fears won summary judgment on those claims, and secured a judgment for its client of $10,000 against the plaintiff.  

Jeffrey K. Brown and Alejandro G. Ruiz were the attorneys on the case.