Opinion ID: 616359
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Buttocks-Grabbing Incident

Text: On November 16, 2004, Tepperwien was in the command post. He was on the telephone with his wife, telling her he was coming home early, when, as he described it, Messina came out of the armory, shoved against me, put his nails into my buttocks, and then quickly left, bolted away. Tepperwien tried to stop Messina from leaving, but failed. Tepperwien reported the incident to his union representative, who in turn reported the incident to an Entergy human resources (HR) manager. [2] The HR manager assigned a senior HR representative, Grace Sanseverino, to investigate. Sanseverino interviewed Tepperwien, Messina, and five othersthe Security Superintendent (Terrence Barry, the head of the security department) and four other security officers. Tepperwien told Sanseverino that he was reluctant to report the incident, and she suggested that he do so anonymously. Tepperwien agreed. As a consequence, although she spoke to Messina, she did not confront him directly about Tepperwien's accusation. She did ask him whether he had ever been involved with touching another person, without indicating male or female, in any inappropriate manner or place. Messina said he had not. Sanseverino also spoke to all security department employees on duty during the shift that day, and no employee reported having witnessed any inappropriate touching or grabbing. Tepperwien's complaint against Messina was not sustained, but Barry and HR nonetheless took certain actions. First, all security officers (including Messina) were required to read and sign a memorandum setting forth Entergy's policy against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Second, all 180 security officers were required to attend an all-day training session on diversity, inclusion, and behavior at work. Third, Messina was removed from his position (which had been temporary) as an instructor at the firing range, although this was at least in part a consequence of whether Messina was in the position in violation of union bargaining unit rules. In December 2004, a few weeks after Tepperwien had complained about the buttocks-grabbing incident, a fact-finding investigation (fact-finder) was opened into his use of sick time. [3] He had been out of work for approximately a month apparently as a result of an injury. He used all his remaining sick days and vacation days. About two weeks after he sustained the injury, Tepperwien called the Entergy medical department and stated that he had sustained the injury while participating in a hand-cuffing exercise at work. He had not, however, earlier filled out an accident or incident report and hence Entergy refused to consider this a work-related injury. Entergy conducted a fact-finder into why Tepperwien had used up all his sick time. He was interviewed, and at the conclusion of the investigation, he was issued a letter advising that he would be subject to disciplinary action if he abused his sick time leave in the future.