Opinion ID: 149654
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Company's Response to Kaytor's Protest

Text: [A]fter the pussy willow incident, Kaytor couldn't take any more. (Kaytor Dep. 185.) She complained to the Company's ombudsperson; and, within a week or two of the incident (a delay because [she] was scared ( id. at 186)), she complained about McCarthy to HR. The pussy willow bush was apparently the talk of the office. Kaytor testified that an HR employee, Cheryl Stergio, told her that people were talking about it throughout the plant ( id. at 280), and that Stergio said coming in to work, and just walking down the hall, she could hear people talking about what McCarthy did to [Kaytor], the pussy willow bush and the flat ass comment ( id. at 280-81). Bryan Burdick, a staff engineer who had been away when Kaytor received the plant, heard talk on the floor about it from about a half dozen people when he returned. (EB Report at 7.) HR conducted an investigation of Kaytor's complaints, interviewing Kaytor, McCarthy, Burdick, several of Kaytor's coworkers, and Al Crogle, a supervisor who reported to McCarthy. The EB Report described, inter alia, statements from coworker Linda Christie who had heard McCarthy make the flat ass comment. (EB Report at 4.) Christie said that McCarthy used crass language with everyone, regardless of gender. She said that on one occasion she had gone to McCarthy's office to ask where Sharon Kaytor was, and McCarthy replied `she's spreading her legs for the doctor.' ( Id. at 5.) When asked about the pussy willow bush incident, Christie said she believed that McCarthy intended to annoy Kaytor with the plant by its underlying sexual connotation. She added, `However, if anyone else got the same plant as a gift I don't think that it would have had the same effect of underlying sexual connotation.'  ( Id. (emphasis in Report).) Another coworker, Sheryl Williams, said she had seen the bush and found it to be a poor specimen; in ordinary circumstances, she would have considered it simply `a poor choice of a gift.' ( Id. at 7 (emphasis in Report).) However, Williams, said that Kaytor had ` relayed to [her] incidents where Dan had harassed [Kaytor]. If those stories are true, [Williams] could see the plant having a sexual connotation based on the name ....' ( Id. (emphasis in Report).) McCarthy, in his HR interview, ascribed Kaytor's accusations to her displeasure with him because she believed he had not supported her in a workers compensation claim. ( See EB Report at 9.) He admitted making a flat ass comment in a conversation with Kaytor in his office, but he stated that he had simply been repeating a doctor's remark that Kaytor herself had relayed to McCarthy several times (EB Report at 9-10)remarks and conversations that Kaytor [a]bsolutely denied had ever occurred (Kaytor Dep. 182). McCarthy also stated that Kaytor had initiated conversations with him about her breast size and sex life ( see EB Report at 11)an assertion that Kaytor testified was entirely untrue (Kaytor Dep. 283-84). When asked specific questions regarding the allegations made by Kaytor (EB Report at 9), McCarthy's responses were, inter alia, that he `d[id] not recall' telling Kaytor he wanted to choke her; that he `ha[d] no recollection' of saying he wanted to see Kaytor in her coffin or that he wanted to come to her home and choke her; that he had no recollection of picking up a scarf from Kaytor's desk and smelling it; and that he had no recollection of making a comment as to Kaytor's spreading her legs for the doctor. ( Id. at 10 (emphases in Report).) On May 16, 2005, the day after the HR investigation was begun, Kaytor was transferred away from McCarthy; within an hour of her first interview with HR, the Company packed up her belongings and moved her to an office down the hall ( see Kaytor Dep. 289). She was reassigned to work for Crogle, a supervisor with whom she had previously had a friendly relationship ( see, e.g., id. at 296, 300); Crogle was supervised by McCarthy. On the day after that reassignment, HR offered Kaytor the opportunity to be retransferred to her old job with McCarthy. ( See id. at 290, 294). She considered it but eventually declined. ( See id. at 294). She was not offered an opportunity to work in a different Company building or to work for anyone who was not supervised by the manager who had harassed her. ( See id. at 288-89.) Kaytor testified that although her compensation remained the same after her transfer to Crogle, she was treated poorly. She was placed in an office in which paint chips containing lead were underfoot and regularly fell on her desk; and on a day when Electric Boat announced a rule that anyone using certain internet websites could be fired, the Company gave her a computer that was loaded with prohibited programs that she could access accidentally and be fired. ( See id. at 299, 313-14.) Kaytor testified that although Crogle treated her normally at first, after a couple of months retaliation started. ( Id. at 297.) Her work hours were changed ( see id. at 299-300); and whereas under McCarthy she had been responsible for ordering supplies for the entire engineering department ( see id. at 14, 16-17), when she was transferred to work for Crogle that job was taken away from her ( see id. at 14, 298-99). Under Crogle, she testified, I sat there with no work to do. ( Id. at 299.) Yet, continually on a daily basis, she was harassed by Al Crogle who would scream and yell at her for the whole department to hear. ( Id. at 299, 301.) Kaytor testified that [t]here was some harassment from some coworkers ( id. at 300), and she was ostracized ( id. at 299).