On September 29, 2006, the Phoenix District Office of the EEOC filed this lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado against Crowley County Correctional Facility, a Colorado prison, and related corporate entities. The complaint was brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, alleging that the defendant allowed female employees to be sexually harassed by their co-workers, and that when some of them complained, the employer retaliated by subjecting them to increased scrutiny, by exposing them to the risk of physical harm at the hands of inmates, and by assigning them to work in isolated areas with their alleged harassers.

The charging parties intervened as plaintiffs in the case. In March of 2008, one of the defendant companies moved for summary judgment on the entire case, and all of the defendants moved for partial summary judgment. On March 12, 2009, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn granted Dominion defendant's motion for summary judgment, finding there was no evidence that the defendant was an employer to any of the plaintiffs.

On September 30, 2009, the parties filed a joint motion to dismiss subject to the entry of a consent decree. U.S. District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil approved the consent decree on October 1, 2009 and dismissed the case. The decree required the defendant to pay $1,300,000 in backpay, compensation, and other monetary relief to claimants. It further enjoined the defendant from discriminating against employees through a gender-based hostile work environment or sexual harassment, and enjoined defendants from retaliating against employees for opposing such discrimination. The defendant was also required to create policies on sexual harassment, provide trainings on sexual harassment, file reports with the EEOC, and expunge the files of claimants in the case. The decree's effective period was three years, and there is nothing more in the docket - so presumably the matter ended in 2012.

Jason Chester - 06/02/2008
Gabriela Hybel - 10/30/2016


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