Compliance March 20, 2007

Case Against Company for Worker Rape Stands

March 20, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a case involving a former ice cream store worker, who sued her former employer Oberweis Dairy for liability for her rape by her supervisor.
Reported by

Business Insurance reports that a U.S. District court had granted summary judgment in favor of the company, but the 7 th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision, allowing the case to move forward.

The appellate court ruled the company was not entitled to summary judgment, saying in its opinion, “ An employer of teenagers is not in loco parentis, but he acts at his peril if he fails to warn their parents when he knows or should know, that their children are at substantial risk of statutory rape by an older, male shift supervisor in circumstances constituting workplace harassment.”

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The shift supervisoris now in prison for statutory rape. The worker was 16 at the time of the incident.

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