In one of longest-running sexual harassment cases in EEOC history, the federal agency announced this week that checks are now in the mail for 82 women who sued Illinois-based International Profit Associates (IPA), a telemarketer. Pursuant to a consent decree, IPA has agreed to pay the women a total of $8 million and to institute strict anti-harassment monitoring at its own expense. The legal settlement ends a lawsuit initially filed in June 2001.

According to the employees and the EEOC, IPA systematically exposed female workers to sexual assaults in the workplace, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriate touching and crude sexual comments that created an extremely hostile work environment. Not content merely to ignore the sexual harassment complaints, the highest-ranking officers at the company not only fostered the harassment but engaged in it themselves.

On June 14 of last year, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois made a formal finding of fact that IPA engaged in a pattern and practice of sexually harassing its female workers.

The lawsuit took nearly a decade to come to an end, largely because IPA repeatedly stalled the litigation by filing unsuccessful motions seeking sanctions against the EEOC for pursuing the case -- motions the EEOC describes as frivolous.

"We were not going to go away," said EEOC regional attorney John Hendrickson.

"We are convinced that the $8 million consent decree in this case-yielding more dollars per person that either our Mitsubishi or Dial sexual harassment cases-is an excellent result, but we cannot find anything positive to say about the fact that an employer strung out a piece of civil rights litigation in the federal courts for almost 10 years," added Hendrickson.

IPA's founder and CEO personally guarantees payment, mortgages own real estate

Under the consent decree, IPA's principal founder, owner, and CEO has personally guaranteed payment on the balance of the $8 million settlement, backing that up by mortgaging his personal real estate assets.

In addition to the payments to the women, IPA has agreed to a series of forceful guarantees that it will not engage in sexual harassment in the future or retaliate against anyone who brings a complaint. IPA agreed to:

  • Pay for two court-appointed monitors, who will accept any further sexual harassment or retaliation complaints by workers, review IPA's sexual harassment policies and procedures, compliance, prevention, and training, and report back to the court
  • Report regularly to the EEOC on its handling of sexual harassment complaints
  • Accept continued court jurisdiction should the EEOC determine that IPA has failed to measure up to the requirements of the consent decree

The first installment, totaling $2.5 million, was paid into a professionally administered settlement fund on March 7, and checks are now on the way to the 82 women. Each woman will receive a share based on the severity of the sexual harassment she experienced, with the total payment over three years averaging $100,000 per plaintiff.

Source: EEOC press release, "International Profit Associates to Pay $8 Million for Sexual Harassment of Eighty-Two Women," March 28, 2011