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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A judge has ordered arbitration of the claims of a woman who sued Allied Universal Security Services LLC and HRL Laboratories LLC., alleging that the HRL emergency operations director who hired her in 2021 repeatedly harassed her sexually, including telling her, "You stole my heart since the first day I saw you coming in for an interview wearing your Allied hat."
The plaintiff is identified only as Jane Doe in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit in which she also maintains that she was subjected to retaliation when she complained. She maintains she was jointly employed by Allied and HRL.
On Tuesday, Judge Kerry Bensinger granted a defense motion to have an arbitrator decide the case instead of a jury.
"There is no dispute plaintiff signed an arbitration agreement and the Federal Arbitration Act governs," the judge wrote. "The arbitration provision encompasses plaintiff's claims."
The judge also noted that Doe's claims accrued before March 2022, when President Joseph R. Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021. Bensinger scheduled a post- arbitration status conference for Oct. 9.
In their court papers filed before the hearing on arbitration, Allied Universal lawyers denied Doe's allegations and cited multiple defenses, including violation by the plaintiff of the statute of limitations. The Allied attorneys also maintained that the company "took immediate and appropriate efforts to quickly and thoroughly investigate" Doe's claims and that the lawsuit should be dismissed.
Doe filed her suit last April 7, alleging sexual harassment, failure to prevent harassment, gender discrimination, sexual battery, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Doe alleges the HRL emergency operations director "abused his position of authority to physically, sexually and verbally abuse" Doe, an Allied Universal security guard.
The HRL operations director sent Doe to abandoned and private spaces at HRL to sexually assault her, according to the suit, which further alleges that the director's behavior "was so openly displayed that he routinely made sexual advances on the employee messenger system and through the recorded telephone line, and others observed him regularly stalking Ms. Doe on the monitor."
The defendants' alleged failure to curb the director's harassing conduct emboldened him, according to the suit.
In April 2021, the director told Doe, "You stole my heart since the first day I saw you coming in for an interview wearing your Allied hat," the suit alleges.
HRL and Allied "failed to remedy or discipline" the operations director and instead gave him a "slap on the wrist" by putting him on paid leave for the first few months following Doe's complaints, the suit states.
The defendants began retaliating against Doe the day after she filed a sexual harassment complaint, including assigning her on some occasions to be on duty outside in rain, though this task was not a part of her January 2022 promotion to lead officer, the suit states.
This alleged backlash lasted more than three months, when the defendants last April gave her the increase in responsibilities for the promotion that she had already earned three months prior, according to the suit.