Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
The restaurant industry has long been a notorious boys’ club, full of misogyny and sexual harassment. With men maintaining most of the power in the industry, women didn’t feel like they had a choice other than to put up with the constant groping and harassment from both male staff and patrons, but a new settlement in a New York sexual harassment case might change all that – or at least move the needle in the right direction.
At the end of 2017, the New York Times reported on multiple allegations made by 11 women working at the Spotted Pig in Manhattan that the owner of the restaurant, Ken Friedman, had repeatedly groped and sexually harassed them. The plaintiffs also allege that Friedman fostered a sexist environment in which they constantly felt unsafe and unwelcome and that he retaliated against them when they tried to speak out against the mistreatment.
The New York State attorney general’s office investigated the matter and recently ordered Friedman to pay the 11 plaintiffs a combination of $240,000, to be split among them and paid out over the next two years, as well as 20% of all his profits from the restaurant over the next ten years, including any money he makes off the sale of the restaurant (of which he currently owns 75-80%) if he decides to sell it. The women are unlikely to see any money from his profits since the restaurant has been in the red for a while, but the almost quarter-million-dollar settlement is nothing to sneeze at. Continue reading ›