Border Agent Wins Sexual Harassment Case

A news release from law firm Ross, Rose and Hammill, which represented plaintiff Julia Davis in her complaint against the US Department of Homeland Security said Judge Daniel Leach awarded Davis $225,000 in damages, lawyers’ fees and costs.

According to the news release, Leach ruled that. Davis “established agency culpability of an egregious sort and has been awarded a sum in damages because of the effects of the agency’s discrimination.” Further, according to the announcement, Leach ruled that Davis’ harasser’s inappropriate conduct and the Agency’s complicity “were so objectively offensive as to alter the conditions of Davis’ employment as a CBP Officer at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the nation’s biggest and busiest border crossing.”

“I find that based on the record in the case, complainant has established not only that the Agency engaged in illegal conduct, but also that the conduct was intolerable to a reasonable person because it was especially humiliating and included unnecessary harassment,” Leach wrote in his ruling. “Secondly, I find that complainant’s resignation was caused by, or in response to, the illegal treatment.”

In addition to compensatory damages, the agency was ordered to take a series of remedial actions, including but not limited to compulsory EEO training programs for all managers and staff at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, as the Judge found “there exists at this facility a culture which trivializes and minimizes the appropriate status and position of females.”