Sexual Harassment Victim Receives $15 Million Award from New York Hospital
A nurse from Flushing Hospital was awarded $15 million after a jury found that the hospital had allowed a doctor to abuse female employees for eight years according to a recent New York Daily News article. The nurse stated that “everybody knew it was an atmosphere of dirty jokes in the hallways and at the nursing station, but no one did anything about it.”
A doctor repeatedly made dirty jokes, propositioned and physically harassed female employees. Despite receiving complaints, hospital supervisors did nothing to correct the behavior. Furthermore, the doctor has a history of sexual harassment violations. In 1996, he was charged with having a two-year sexual relationship with an alcoholic patient.
Sexual harassment occurs either when one explicitly or implicitly rejects the improper sexual conduct of another and this rejection affects an individual's employment in ways such as interfering with one's work performance, or in some cases creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. It is unlawful for an employer to allow supervisors and other coworkers to create or maintain a workplace that may interfere with work because of intimidating, hostile or offensive sexual harassing conduct.
