Description

California Pizza Kitchen has been sued in Santa Clara County Superior Court (Case #109CV155965) by The Armstrong Law Firm, representing a former employee who claims she was subjected to sexual harassment by her supervisor then retaliated against when she complained to management and discriminated against for being pregnant.

The lawsuit names California Pizza Kitchen Supervisor Andy Lee (Palo Alto restaurant) as the individual who engaged in sexually abusive and harassing behavior. The complaint states that Lee had informed the plaintiff that he had prior sexual harassment complaints filed against him.

"It's outrageous that California Pizza Kitchen would not take sexual harassment complaints by its female employees seriously, especially when the harasser is a manager and multiple witnesses confirm the sexual harassment.” said Kelly Armstrong, The Armstrong Law Firm. "This tells me that either California Pizza Kitchen does not care about protecting its employees or is unfamiliar with sexual harassment law," added Armstrong.

The complaint filed states that the plaintiff was subjected to sexually harassing behavior by Lee almost immediately upon being hired and that California Pizza Kitchen failed to take action to stop the abusive behavior when they were notified of the problem. Instead, the plaintiff states that she was subjected to illegal retaliation for reporting the sexual harassment.

"It appears California Pizza Kitchen did not have an adequate sexual harassment policy and did not provide adequate sexual harassment training with respect to its employees and managers," stated Armstrong.

The problem was made worse when the plaintiff notified California Pizza Kitchen that she was pregnant. She then received false performance reports, was targeted for wrongful termination and was required to perform heavy lifting and strenuous labor which required hospitalization in one instance.

"California Pizza Kitchen needs to take immediate action to make the workplace safe for its young female employees and to not place the health of pregnant employees at risk with retaliatory actions," said Armstrong.