Woman was fired for reporting harassment at Topeka Mars Chocolate Factory, suit says
A woman says she was fired from the Mars Chocolate Factory in Topeka after reporting being sexually harassed, according to a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Kansas City, Kansas. The lawsuit goes on to say that the woman’s supervisor filed a police report claiming she spoke about wanting to kill people and being involved in drive-by shootings.
The woman’s claims were made against the Mars Wrigley Confectionery, the company best known for making and selling M&M’s. Mars did not respond to the Star’s request for comment.
The Star also requested a copy of the police report Mars filed with the Shawnee County Sheriff’s office but has not yet received it.
According to the lawsuit, the woman experienced harassment from her supervisors in the factory from January 2016 until she was fired in May 2018. The woman’s lawsuit against Mars was filed in February.
The Star does not name victims of sexual harassment or assault without their consent.
Starting in 2016 the woman’s supervisor, referred to in the suit as J.G., consistently made sexual comments to the woman.
During training he told her that he would “use his power over (her) as her supervisor and would ‘get his way’ with (her),” the lawsuit says.
While he was her supervisor, J.G. would come to the factory floor just to speak with her and make inappropriate comments, drive past her house without reason, send her inappropriate messages over Facebook and tell her that if she wanted a raise she had “better get to pleasing him,” the suit says.
After receiving inappropriate text messages from J.G., the suit says the woman confronted him. He allegedly told her to “calm down and stop being so serious.”
In addition to the inappropriate comments from J.G., the woman says in the lawsuit that her coworkers teased her about the comments. When she asked them to stop, they allegedly told her to “stop being a bitch.”
The woman reported this conduct to another supervisor, T.B., who told her to “stop being a bitch” and harassed her when he was serving as her supervisor while J.G. was on vacation, the suit says.
Eventually, the suit says J.G. and T.B. wrote the woman up for fake issues and she reported the situation to human resources. Both men were fired.
Following the dismissal of J.G. and T.B., the suit says the woman went on leave and received treatment for stress and anxiety caused by the persistent harassment.
According to the suit, when she returned her new supervisors, J.E. and J.S., made it clear to the woman that they were unhappy she had caused the dismissal of their friend, T.B.
The two allegedly gave the woman unwarranted write-ups for absences and told their supervisor that she was taking extra breaks.
The woman requested a team meeting to discuss these allegations at which point J.S. called her a “self-centered bitch” who his friends “did not deserve to get fired over,” the suit says.
J.S. was fired after the meeting.
After this meeting, the woman took leave for anxiety and later for hand surgery.
When she came back after her surgery, the suit says J.E. immediately began to harass her and told her he wished she would have been fired.
The supervisor she reported this to told her to ignore J.E. and stay positive, the suit says.
J.E. allegedly continued to make false claims about the woman’s attendance.
In May 2018, the suit says J.E. filed a police report claiming the woman had spoken about wanting to kill people. After the woman spoke to police about the allegations, the lawsuit says she called a supervisor who told her not to work until Mars finished their investigation.
After a week, the suit says the woman was fired because Mars said she was slandering the company’s name and they had no proof of the police report or of the harassment. At the time the suit was filed, J.E. was still employed with Mars.
The woman is suing for retaliation.
This story was originally published June 21, 2019 at 5:32 PM.
