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   Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2M

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Topic: Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2M (Read 539 times)

luci
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Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2M
« on: Apr 27^th, 2006, 12:35pm »

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By JULIANA BARBASSA, Associated Press Writer
Wed Apr 26, 9:58 PM

FRESNO, Calif. - Lawyers for a woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise asked a jury Wednesday for at least $1.2 million for the humiliation she claimed to have suffered.

Janet Orlando, 53, quit her job at the home security company Alarm One Inc. in Fresno and sued, alleging discrimination, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.

Employees were paddled with rival companies' yard signs as part of a contest that pitted sales teams against each other, according to court documents. The winners poked fun at the losers, throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks.

"No reasonable middle-aged woman would want to be put up there before a group of young men, turned around to show her buttocks, get spanked and called abusive names, and told it was to increase sales and motivate employees," her lawyer, Nicholas "Butch" Wagner, said in his closing argument.

Lawyers for Alarm One, an Anaheim-based, 300-employee company, said the spankings were part of a voluntary program to build camaraderie and were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers.

"This is being done for one reason and one reason only _ money," said K. Poncho Baker, the company's lawyer.

Alarm One officials ceased the practice in 2004, the year Orlando sued, after another employee complained of being injured, according to court records.

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AmberJ
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Re: Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2
« Reply #1 on: Apr 28^th, 2006, 11:28pm »

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Jury awards $1.7 million to spanked employee
Alarm company says it was part of a team-building exercise

FRESNO, California (AP) -- A jury awarded $1.7 million Friday to a woman who was spanked in front of her colleagues in what her employer called a camaraderie-building exercise.

The jury of six men and six women found that Janet Orlando, 53, was subjected to sexual harassment and sexual battery when she was paddled on the rear end two years ago at Alarm One Inc., a home security company in Fresno. The jury said Orlando did not suffer from sexual assault, as she had alleged.

Jurors awarded Orlando $10,000 for economic loss, $40,000 for future medical costs and $450,000 for emotional distress, pain and suffering. They awarded her an additional $1.2 million in punitive damages.

Orlando's attorney, Nicholas "Butch" Wagner, did not immediately return calls for comment.

K. Poncho Baker, an attorney for Alarm One, said it was excessive.

"I think the jury was so upset at Alarm One that they went overboard," Baker said. "Not to say that what Alarm One did was right, but this allows her to manipulate the system."

Orlando quit in 2004, less than a year after she was hired, saying she was humiliated during the company's camaraderie-building exercises.

Sales teams were encouraged to compete, and the losers were made fun of, forced to eat baby food, required to wear diapers and spanked with a rival company's yard signs, according to court documents.

Lawyers for the company said Orlando and others took part in the exercises willingly. The company has since abandoned the practice.

During the trial, company attorneys revealed that Orlando had sued a previous employer, also claiming that she had been sexually harassed.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Pocket
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Re: Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2
« Reply #2 on: Apr 29^th, 2006, 6:42am »

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Camaraderie building exercises? Where did they learn this method, I wonder? Totally bizarre.

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Rhune
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Re: Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2
« Reply #3 on: Apr 29^th, 2006, 10:18am »

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Yeah, this was a bad bad idea on thier part. Worse, it was a good initial idea (comraderie exercises in general), taken too far (to the point of hazing) and ultimately resulting in a lawsuit. Now, I hate to put things into stereotypes, but I suspect the planning committee for this whole exercise did not include any women. Cause if they'd had a woman on the committe I suspect she'd have told them that was probably not a good idea.

When I was in college and was pledging to the theatre fraternity (called frat cause it included mixed genders), the committee that planed the pledge week crap we had to do was all guys. One of the ideas they came up with was to have each of us wear a white shirt and collect as many signatures on it as we could. The one with the most signatures wins. Sounds harmless until you consider that women have breasts and to cover the shirt with signatures would require having strangers hold the shirt still while they write on your breasts at some point. Now, to me, I wasn't personally offended by it, but there were a couple girls that were and got unhappy over it. The following year the contest was to carry the shirt, and not wear it and collect signatures. Not quite as "fun" but less likely to get them sued.

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Tyler
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Re: Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2
« Reply #4 on: Apr 30^th, 2006, 6:03am »

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I think that this is still all wrong..But didn't she join the thing willingly?...Knowing that somthing would happen

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luci
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Re: Woman in Calif. Spanked at Work, Sues for $1.2
« Reply #5 on: Apr 30^th, 2006, 10:09am »

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on Apr 30^th, 2006, 6:03am, Racedude621 wrote:

I think that this is still all wrong..But didn't she join the thing willingly?...Knowing that somthing would happen

When you are grown and in the work force, you will understand these kids of happenings a lot better.

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