ON AND ON, ON AND ON, ON AND ON: On average we field at least half a dozen or more calls and emails a week from readers that are either flummoxed or flabbergasted at the total lack of ability and professionalism at the local newspaper these days-perhaps the worst it’s ever been and that’s says volumes in and of itself.
The latest sh*tstorm is over an October 3rd article finally covering the Kristan C. Hirakawa-Suniga sexual harassment lawsuit against the county, a matter we started covering in December of 2009- with more revelations in June, culminating in a August report on the $450,000 settlement.
You might think that the calls and letters we got on this matter were about the many other outstanding EEOC complaints and sexual harassment suits that went unnamed in the article which instead had an interview with our half-assed County Attorney Al Castillo who claimed the age of harassment of women is in the past despite current outstanding suits that were exacerbated and even initiated by the actions and inaction of his office after he was appointed.
One of those EEOC complaints was filed by former Deputy County Attorney Margaret Hanson over her firing by Castillo himself when he came into office although the type of discrimination has not been revealed... and neither has any settlement.
There’s also the outstanding case of “Kaua`i Bus” driver Kathleen M. Ah Quin which may or may not have been settled during a recent executive session as we reported in June.
In all of these cases, rather than settling when he came into office Castillo requested money from the county council to fight these suits.
So much for his attempt to turn around the way the county treats sexual harassment, as the article contends.
But no they weren’t about that. All of the callers and emailers wanted to talk about the impression given in the article that Hirakawa’s harasser was her new husband Sonny Suniga whom she recently married and with whom she recently had a child.
Nothing of course could be farther from the truth. The name of her harasser- which was conveniently (and typically) left out of the article is Dexter Shimatsu as we also reported in the original article on Hirakawa-Suniga.
But after describing the suit and settlement- all on the basis of an interview with Suniga’s attorney Daniel Hempey and obviously without reading the suit or it’s second filing, the two- count ‘em, two- writers of the story (yes it took two people to write this mess) Paul Curtis and Leo Azambuja first described some of the story.
Hirakawa was paid $100,000 in county funds in 2003 in a worker’s-compensation settlement while she was a dispatcher, a civilian position within the Kaua`i Police Department.
She filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in January 2002 that accused former KPD Lt. Alvin Seto of coercing her into filing a harassment complaint against fellow dispatcher Nelson Gabriel.
Gabriel is now a uniformed KPD officer.
Gabriel was charged with six counts of harassment, one count of harassment by stalking, in 2001 after he was reassigned to dispatch after being accused of sexually assaulting his stepdaughter. He was found not guilty of the sex-assault charges.
Part of the settlement in the dispatch case mandated county officials to identify other county jobs Hirakawa might be qualified to fill, and she was hired at the Department of Liquor Control, said Hempey.
But then, out of the blue and appropriate of nothing but seemingly explanatory of something, they wrote:
Hirakawa in November 2009 was granted a temporary restraining order against Sonny Suniga, for a period of six months wherein Suniga also agreed to attend a domestic-violence workshop, state court records show.
Less than a month later, Hirakawa asked for the TRO to be dissolved, and Fifth Circuit Family Court Judge Calvin Murashige granted that request.
On Sept. 8, Mr. and Mrs. Sonny Suniga greeted their first child, a girl, Tianny Brandi Namiko Suniga, weighing 7 pounds, 1.7 ounces, at Kaua`i Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waimea.
Of course people thought Suniga was the harasser- why else would they mention it?
Comments on the article in the on-line version certainly thought so.
Here’s some examples:
truthislaw said on: October 3, 2010, 7:41 am
Am reading this right?
Hirakawa makes claims against Suniga for harassment, sues the county, wins the suit, then marries her harasser and has a baby?
John_Brown said on: October 3, 2010, 10:39 am
Woah... The first settlement appeared to be totally legit but the second one where she ended up marrying the guy and having his kid? That's harassment? That appears to be COURTSHIP. It appears she realized there was money to be made in this harassment thing... And why settle for $100K? Get a better lawyer and go for the big money! And at some point they were unwanted advances and that all changed once the litigation began? Something seems very fishy about this entire situation and what's sad is that the county still paid. Lastly, 'waiting' at home for the settlements must have been tough duty. I guess with all that free time... BABY from the 'abuser'. LOL
payback said on: October 3, 2010, 3:39 pm
As a taxpayer I would not object to spending the money to prosecute thus Bonnie and Clyde to deter others from this scheme. When the “advances” were no longer “unwanted” (assuming they ever were) a stop should be put on her check.
As a rule in journalism and libel law if you are going to bring up a fact about the subject of an article- especially someone who is not a public figure- it’s supposed to be “germane” to the article and. of course, the context that makes it germane should be made apparent.
In addition to the obvious journalistic reason of not showing bias or even malice, the “rule” is made for exactly this circumstance- so that people do not relate the unrelated fact to what is being reported and get the wrong impression.
Doing this kind of thing can lead to a libel suit. Hirakawa, despite the lawsuit, is not a public figure so there is no “absence of malice” standard, only a preponderance of the evidence is needed to show she was harmed by the publication of false material even if it was unintentional.
So far, despite the comments and outrage in the community cause by their false and unethical reporting, there has been no correction forthcoming from the newspaper.
It’s about time someone sued this rag. Maybe then they would wake up to all the angst and wild false rumors that they create across the island and about which we field these calls and letter.
If we were the Suniga’s we’d be calling Hempey right about now.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hirakawa. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hirakawa. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
DON’T WORRY YOUR PRETTY LITTLE HEAD
DON’T WORRY YOUR PRETTY LITTLE HEAD: Will wonders never cease?
The local newspaper’s police beat reporter Paul Curtis actually dared to name Dexter Shimatsu as the harasser of Kristan (Hirakawa) Suniga- a case we detailed last December and have written about many times this year- in today’s paper.
But- and didn’t you know there’d be a but?- instead of finally detailing all the horrors of the case, Curtis spent the bulk of the article concentrating on a minor aspect - the fact that one of the incidents detailed in Hirakawa’s suit happened via email- and trying to therefore crusade for getting the county to stick Shimatsu with the $450,000 settlement (which we first reported earlier this month) due to some on-line county policy Shimatsu signed.
But of course Curtis and his newspaper of record still haven’t reported on harassment suit by “Kaua`i Bus” driver Kathleen M. Ah Quin to go with the short shrift given the Hirakawa suit.
Gee let’s take a guess at why. Could it be because the alleged harasser in that case- which apparently remains unsettled- happens to be Executive on Transportation Janine Rapozo, wife of Lenny Rapozo, head of Department of Parks and Recreation and former campaign manager for Mayor Bernard Carvalho, and whom, we’ve heard over and over from county employees, “runs” the county politically?
That may also explain why the case remains unsettled. It also might explain what we reported in December of 2008.
Just as appalling as the actual discrimination is the fact (Ah Quin’s) lawsuit was filed only because a year went by after Ah Quin’s filing of Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission (HCRC) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints without any attempt by the county to respond or even attempt to investigate the charges.
At a special council meeting called at the end of November the County Attorney at the time Matthew Pyun asked the council for $50,000 to hire an outside attorney to respond to the suit.
And outgoing councilpersons Shaylene Iseri Carvalho and Mel Rapozo (no relation) were livid.
“You’ve got to read this” shrieked Iseri waving a copy of the suit over her head. “The County Attorney’s office has not engaged in any investigation (for a year) and now wants to hire an investigator” when there’s only 20 days to respond.
She told the council that she would not use taxpayer money without a commitment to investigate complaints when they are filed, saying she was “disgusted” and how the situation was “typical of the wasteful spending” of the administration and specifically the county attorney’s office.
She also questioned why it would cost $50,000 to respond since the first 20 day response is really a pro-forma type of thing that should rightfully be done “in-house” before hiring an outside attorney if it becomes necessary to defend the suit.
Councilmember Rapozo- who with Iseri voted against the approval of the funds even after the request was amended to $20,000- described how no one with the county ever spoke to any of the employees names in the suit or investigated any of the incidents.
You’ve got to read all the disgusting details of Ah Quin’s harassment to get the flavor of J. Rapozo’s county-protected treatment of women on the job on which she remains.
But getting back to the Hirakawa suit. For those who have forgotten or never read the facts surrounding the suit, the local paper fails to mention a previous settlement received by Hirakawa when she was working for Cutis’ beloved, can-do-no-wrong Kaua`i Police Department.
As Hirakawa’s suit stated
(p)reviously, in approximately 2001, Plaintiff was employed as a dispatcher for the Kauai Police Department when she was sexually harassed by a co-worker. Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). As a result of the previous case, Plaintiff suffered serious physiological injury due to the sexual harassment, improper response to her legitimate complaint and loss of privacy that was inflicted on her while working in the Kauai Police Department. The matter settled without admitting fault.
Defendant County of Kauai agreed to identify and assist Plaintiff with obtaining another County job as a result of settlement negotiations in the previous case. Ultimately, Plaintiff obtained employment at the Kauai County Liquor Commission.
We’ll end by re-running the full story- the predicate facts as they call them- of Shimatsu’s harassment of Hirakawa according to her suit.
The County of Kauai, obviously aware of Plaintiffs previous case and emotional condition, placed her in a workplace with a known sexual harasser as a co-worker and a supervisor with no prior training in sexual harassment law. On information and belief, the County of Kauai has consistently failed to meet its legal obligations to identify and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Upon relocation to the Kauai County Liquor Commission, Plaintiff was immediately subject to offensive conduct on the basis of her sex. Her supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, made sarcastic comments about sexual harassment to Plaintiff, often alluding to her history of having made a sexual harassment complaint. Shimatsu complained to Plaintiff that he had to order all of the posters [of scantily clad women] removed from the workplace because the "County made me hire you."'
During the course of her employment Plaintiff was often the subject of ridicule, sexual innuendo, sexual emails and insults from her supervisor. Shimatsu called her holistic medical practitioner a "witch doctor", and wrote an email to her saying: Use your common sense...I think you'll stay healthy...Oh yeah, and sleep with your clothes on. You could catch a cold, the flu and get pregnant without your clothes on...all bad ailments.
Shimatsu's demeaning conduct continued. After Plaintiff entered her baby into a contest (which she did not win), Shimatsu left a newspaper clipping of the winning baby in her mail bin where all her co-workers could see it. Above the picture of the winning mother and baby Shimatsu wrote a note saying: I really think the baby won because the mother was cute. With that in mind, you really need to do something about yourself...so your baby can win. Your baby did her part by being cute... it's now up to you.
In May 2007, Shimatsu called Plaintiff into his office to tell her he heard from someone that her boyfriend was getting deployed to the Middle East. He stated, "You should buy your boyfriend a lot of condoms because there are a lot of prostitutes where he'll be stationed." He followed up in an email saying he doesn't think there are really prostitutes there.
At work the sexual harassment was incessant. Shimatsu continued degrading Plaintiff calling her such names as "tonta," meaning slow, dumb or stupid, and "shibai." Shimatsu made insolent comments about Plaintiff when she made a mistake but did not treat her co-workers rudely.
When she requested vacation time to care for her four month-old baby, Shimatsu responded in a memo stating: Your request for Vac/ Ct...was approved after much discussion...Lady, you give me a headache... always asking for special treatment as a female. I kind of feel its sexual harassment and should look into it. I think that's the only way I'm going to get rid of this nasty headache...what you think?
Plaintiff noted that other employees were not subject to insolent comments when asking for time off.
On another occasion, Shimatsu emailed to Plaintiff a photo of an attractive female dressed only in a tiny, diamond studded bikini. Shimatsu typed "You Wish" on the email before sending the email to Plaintiff from his work computer.
Plaintiff was unable to be in such a virulent environment where working meant being in constant dialogue with the perpetrator. She took leave on a disability claim. She sought medical help and counseling because of the harassment and discrimination at the Kauai County Liquor Commission. Under direction of Plaintiffs medical providers, she was not allowed to resume working while the harasser remained there or until the situation had been corrected.
In June of 2007, Plaintiff reported the sexual harassment to the County and sought disability leave from work.
The County did not pay on Plaintiffs disabilities claim and did not separate her from Shimatsu.
The County has failed to properly respond to or address the alleged sexual harassment complaint raised by Plaintiff.
The County broke its own County policy on sexual harassment as promised to Plaintiff and other County employees in a number of respects. First, the County promises that complaints of sexual harassment will be investigated within two weeks time. No timely investigation was done in Plaintiff's case. Secondly, County policy promises that the findings and results of an investigation into a complaint of sexual harassment will be made available to the complainant. The results of any investigation into sexual harassment have still not been made available to Plaintiff. And thirdly, County policy promises that corrective action will be taken when a County employee suffers from sexual harassment. On information and belief, no such corrective action has been taken.
Upon information and belief, the County's policy on sexual harassment in the workplace was intended to comply with applicable law.
Furthermore, the County ignored State and Federal law regarding the matter being pursued. The County instead protected the accused, her supervisor Shimatsu, offering no remedial action to Plaintiff and failing to conduct even a basic investigation for several months.
In many cases, County policy directs employees to report allegations of sexual harassment to the Office of the County Attorney to ensure, among other things, that the County acts in compliance with State and Federal law. However, in this case, the Office of the County Attorney chose to arbitrarily dispute Plaintiff's claim without adequate investigation and contrary to State and Federal law.
Upon information and belief, the County used a woman with no prior training or experience in sexual harassment investigations to perform the investigation of Plaintiffs complaint of sexual harassment.
A few months later, Plaintiff, through counsel, asked the Office of the County Attorney if she could have the results of its investigation(s) in Plaintiff's report of sexual harassment. The request was made pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. Ch. 92F et seq. (The Hawaii Public Records Act), but the Office of the County Attorney failed and/or refused to provide the results of the investigation to Plaintiff's attorney.
In August 2007, the County contacted Plaintiff and informed her that an interview was forthcoming, but it wasn't until September 14, 2007 when Ann Wooten, the chosen investigator, interviewed Plaintiff.
On information and belief, the County never asked Shimatsu if the Plaintiffs allegations against him were true.
The investigation was only performed after Plaintiff's disability pay had expired. The County left Plaintiff, a single mother of two, in a precarious financial position because of the delay in investigating her complaint and the lack of corrective action taken.
Plaintiff remains unable to resume working in direct contact with the same supervisor. Her accumulated losses approximate $50,000.00 even after mitigating wages lost by securing lower-paying employment. Her new position pays significantly less than her employment with the County.
The aforesaid events have changed the course of Plaintiff's life and career.
Plaintiff has complied with the administrative procedural requirements for maintaining a civil action for discrimination on the basis of sex and for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Plaintiff filed the aforesaid charges with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions, and the EEOC has made a determination of cause to believe that the alleged sexual harassment occurred.
On November 13, 2008 the EEOC found that "The Commission's investigation determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female."
Thereafter the EEOC issued a "Right to Sue" letter and Plaintiff, and timely filed this action with 90 days of issuance of her Right to Sue letter, issued on March 3, 2009.
At all relevant times herein, the acts of the County were undertaken within the course and scope of Plaintiff's employment.
Wow- you made it this far without vomiting on your keyboard.
-------------
We’ll be taking a long weekend. See ya Monday.
The local newspaper’s police beat reporter Paul Curtis actually dared to name Dexter Shimatsu as the harasser of Kristan (Hirakawa) Suniga- a case we detailed last December and have written about many times this year- in today’s paper.
But- and didn’t you know there’d be a but?- instead of finally detailing all the horrors of the case, Curtis spent the bulk of the article concentrating on a minor aspect - the fact that one of the incidents detailed in Hirakawa’s suit happened via email- and trying to therefore crusade for getting the county to stick Shimatsu with the $450,000 settlement (which we first reported earlier this month) due to some on-line county policy Shimatsu signed.
But of course Curtis and his newspaper of record still haven’t reported on harassment suit by “Kaua`i Bus” driver Kathleen M. Ah Quin to go with the short shrift given the Hirakawa suit.
Gee let’s take a guess at why. Could it be because the alleged harasser in that case- which apparently remains unsettled- happens to be Executive on Transportation Janine Rapozo, wife of Lenny Rapozo, head of Department of Parks and Recreation and former campaign manager for Mayor Bernard Carvalho, and whom, we’ve heard over and over from county employees, “runs” the county politically?
That may also explain why the case remains unsettled. It also might explain what we reported in December of 2008.
Just as appalling as the actual discrimination is the fact (Ah Quin’s) lawsuit was filed only because a year went by after Ah Quin’s filing of Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission (HCRC) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints without any attempt by the county to respond or even attempt to investigate the charges.
At a special council meeting called at the end of November the County Attorney at the time Matthew Pyun asked the council for $50,000 to hire an outside attorney to respond to the suit.
And outgoing councilpersons Shaylene Iseri Carvalho and Mel Rapozo (no relation) were livid.
“You’ve got to read this” shrieked Iseri waving a copy of the suit over her head. “The County Attorney’s office has not engaged in any investigation (for a year) and now wants to hire an investigator” when there’s only 20 days to respond.
She told the council that she would not use taxpayer money without a commitment to investigate complaints when they are filed, saying she was “disgusted” and how the situation was “typical of the wasteful spending” of the administration and specifically the county attorney’s office.
She also questioned why it would cost $50,000 to respond since the first 20 day response is really a pro-forma type of thing that should rightfully be done “in-house” before hiring an outside attorney if it becomes necessary to defend the suit.
Councilmember Rapozo- who with Iseri voted against the approval of the funds even after the request was amended to $20,000- described how no one with the county ever spoke to any of the employees names in the suit or investigated any of the incidents.
You’ve got to read all the disgusting details of Ah Quin’s harassment to get the flavor of J. Rapozo’s county-protected treatment of women on the job on which she remains.
But getting back to the Hirakawa suit. For those who have forgotten or never read the facts surrounding the suit, the local paper fails to mention a previous settlement received by Hirakawa when she was working for Cutis’ beloved, can-do-no-wrong Kaua`i Police Department.
As Hirakawa’s suit stated
(p)reviously, in approximately 2001, Plaintiff was employed as a dispatcher for the Kauai Police Department when she was sexually harassed by a co-worker. Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). As a result of the previous case, Plaintiff suffered serious physiological injury due to the sexual harassment, improper response to her legitimate complaint and loss of privacy that was inflicted on her while working in the Kauai Police Department. The matter settled without admitting fault.
Defendant County of Kauai agreed to identify and assist Plaintiff with obtaining another County job as a result of settlement negotiations in the previous case. Ultimately, Plaintiff obtained employment at the Kauai County Liquor Commission.
We’ll end by re-running the full story- the predicate facts as they call them- of Shimatsu’s harassment of Hirakawa according to her suit.
The County of Kauai, obviously aware of Plaintiffs previous case and emotional condition, placed her in a workplace with a known sexual harasser as a co-worker and a supervisor with no prior training in sexual harassment law. On information and belief, the County of Kauai has consistently failed to meet its legal obligations to identify and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Upon relocation to the Kauai County Liquor Commission, Plaintiff was immediately subject to offensive conduct on the basis of her sex. Her supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, made sarcastic comments about sexual harassment to Plaintiff, often alluding to her history of having made a sexual harassment complaint. Shimatsu complained to Plaintiff that he had to order all of the posters [of scantily clad women] removed from the workplace because the "County made me hire you."'
During the course of her employment Plaintiff was often the subject of ridicule, sexual innuendo, sexual emails and insults from her supervisor. Shimatsu called her holistic medical practitioner a "witch doctor", and wrote an email to her saying: Use your common sense...I think you'll stay healthy...Oh yeah, and sleep with your clothes on. You could catch a cold, the flu and get pregnant without your clothes on...all bad ailments.
Shimatsu's demeaning conduct continued. After Plaintiff entered her baby into a contest (which she did not win), Shimatsu left a newspaper clipping of the winning baby in her mail bin where all her co-workers could see it. Above the picture of the winning mother and baby Shimatsu wrote a note saying: I really think the baby won because the mother was cute. With that in mind, you really need to do something about yourself...so your baby can win. Your baby did her part by being cute... it's now up to you.
In May 2007, Shimatsu called Plaintiff into his office to tell her he heard from someone that her boyfriend was getting deployed to the Middle East. He stated, "You should buy your boyfriend a lot of condoms because there are a lot of prostitutes where he'll be stationed." He followed up in an email saying he doesn't think there are really prostitutes there.
At work the sexual harassment was incessant. Shimatsu continued degrading Plaintiff calling her such names as "tonta," meaning slow, dumb or stupid, and "shibai." Shimatsu made insolent comments about Plaintiff when she made a mistake but did not treat her co-workers rudely.
When she requested vacation time to care for her four month-old baby, Shimatsu responded in a memo stating: Your request for Vac/ Ct...was approved after much discussion...Lady, you give me a headache... always asking for special treatment as a female. I kind of feel its sexual harassment and should look into it. I think that's the only way I'm going to get rid of this nasty headache...what you think?
Plaintiff noted that other employees were not subject to insolent comments when asking for time off.
On another occasion, Shimatsu emailed to Plaintiff a photo of an attractive female dressed only in a tiny, diamond studded bikini. Shimatsu typed "You Wish" on the email before sending the email to Plaintiff from his work computer.
Plaintiff was unable to be in such a virulent environment where working meant being in constant dialogue with the perpetrator. She took leave on a disability claim. She sought medical help and counseling because of the harassment and discrimination at the Kauai County Liquor Commission. Under direction of Plaintiffs medical providers, she was not allowed to resume working while the harasser remained there or until the situation had been corrected.
In June of 2007, Plaintiff reported the sexual harassment to the County and sought disability leave from work.
The County did not pay on Plaintiffs disabilities claim and did not separate her from Shimatsu.
The County has failed to properly respond to or address the alleged sexual harassment complaint raised by Plaintiff.
The County broke its own County policy on sexual harassment as promised to Plaintiff and other County employees in a number of respects. First, the County promises that complaints of sexual harassment will be investigated within two weeks time. No timely investigation was done in Plaintiff's case. Secondly, County policy promises that the findings and results of an investigation into a complaint of sexual harassment will be made available to the complainant. The results of any investigation into sexual harassment have still not been made available to Plaintiff. And thirdly, County policy promises that corrective action will be taken when a County employee suffers from sexual harassment. On information and belief, no such corrective action has been taken.
Upon information and belief, the County's policy on sexual harassment in the workplace was intended to comply with applicable law.
Furthermore, the County ignored State and Federal law regarding the matter being pursued. The County instead protected the accused, her supervisor Shimatsu, offering no remedial action to Plaintiff and failing to conduct even a basic investigation for several months.
In many cases, County policy directs employees to report allegations of sexual harassment to the Office of the County Attorney to ensure, among other things, that the County acts in compliance with State and Federal law. However, in this case, the Office of the County Attorney chose to arbitrarily dispute Plaintiff's claim without adequate investigation and contrary to State and Federal law.
Upon information and belief, the County used a woman with no prior training or experience in sexual harassment investigations to perform the investigation of Plaintiffs complaint of sexual harassment.
A few months later, Plaintiff, through counsel, asked the Office of the County Attorney if she could have the results of its investigation(s) in Plaintiff's report of sexual harassment. The request was made pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. Ch. 92F et seq. (The Hawaii Public Records Act), but the Office of the County Attorney failed and/or refused to provide the results of the investigation to Plaintiff's attorney.
In August 2007, the County contacted Plaintiff and informed her that an interview was forthcoming, but it wasn't until September 14, 2007 when Ann Wooten, the chosen investigator, interviewed Plaintiff.
On information and belief, the County never asked Shimatsu if the Plaintiffs allegations against him were true.
The investigation was only performed after Plaintiff's disability pay had expired. The County left Plaintiff, a single mother of two, in a precarious financial position because of the delay in investigating her complaint and the lack of corrective action taken.
Plaintiff remains unable to resume working in direct contact with the same supervisor. Her accumulated losses approximate $50,000.00 even after mitigating wages lost by securing lower-paying employment. Her new position pays significantly less than her employment with the County.
The aforesaid events have changed the course of Plaintiff's life and career.
Plaintiff has complied with the administrative procedural requirements for maintaining a civil action for discrimination on the basis of sex and for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Plaintiff filed the aforesaid charges with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions, and the EEOC has made a determination of cause to believe that the alleged sexual harassment occurred.
On November 13, 2008 the EEOC found that "The Commission's investigation determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female."
Thereafter the EEOC issued a "Right to Sue" letter and Plaintiff, and timely filed this action with 90 days of issuance of her Right to Sue letter, issued on March 3, 2009.
At all relevant times herein, the acts of the County were undertaken within the course and scope of Plaintiff's employment.
Wow- you made it this far without vomiting on your keyboard.
-------------
We’ll be taking a long weekend. See ya Monday.
Monday, August 23, 2010
(PNN) COUNTY SECRETLY SETTLES HIRAKAWA SEX DISCRIMINATION SUIT FOR $450,000
COUNTY SECRETLY SETTLES HIRAKAWA SEX DISCRIMINATION SUIT FOR $450,000
(PNN) -- PNN has learned that the County of Kaua`i has settled the sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Kristan C. Hirakawa and has paid her $450,000.
According to a reliable source who asked not to be identified, the check has been cut yet there has been no announcement and there is no record of the settlement which was apparently approved by the county council in an executive session at their July 27 meeting.
Hirakawa sued the county for a second time after winning her first suit against the Kaua`i Police Department and being reassigned to the liquor department where she was once again a victim of gender discrimination resulting in the current settlement, as PNN has exclusively reported.
Although settlements are public records according to the Office of Information Practices (OIP) the “recap memo” for the July 27 council meeting shows no settlement vote was taken in open session.
The agenda item, Executive Session (ES) 458, says it was held “for the purposes of deliberating, deciding, and authorizing a proposed settlement in the case of Kristan C. Hirakawa v. County of Kaua`i”.
According to OIP Opinion 89-10 regarding settlement agreements “(o)nce the litigation is concluded...all the settlement agreements must be publicly available.”
However OIP Opinion 03-07 regarding voting in executive meetings says that
Votes taken in executive meetings need not be disclosed to the public because the Sunshine Law allows minutes of executive meetings to be withheld so long as their publication would defeat the lawful purpose of the executive meeting, but no longer. Once disclosure of votes taken in executive meetings does not defeat the lawful purpose of holding an executive meeting, the votes should be disclosed.
A request for clarification was sent yesterday to OIP asking whether a lawsuit settlement vote must be taken in open session with the terms disclosed and, if not, how the public is supposed to know about the settlement. No answer was received by press time.
Also on the July 27 agenda was ES 256 which was held “for the purposes of deliberating, deciding, and authorizing a proposed settlement in the case of Jane Doe v. County of Kaua`i, EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) Charge No. 37-B-2009-00620 and FEPA NO. K-15516”.
There is no record of any settlement of this case although as PNN reported there are multiple EEOC complaints against the county including one by former deputy county attorney Margaret Hanson Sueoka was mistakenly revealed by the county in June of 2009.
EEOC complaints are confidential according to federal law which supersedes the state sunshine law.
Although a source close to council services has told PNN that the Sueoka case has been settled there is no record of the settlement.
According to law, the EEOC must give the go-ahead in order for an employment discrimination suit to be brought in circuit court.
Also outstanding is the case of Kathleen Ah Quin against the county transportation agency which the council apparently voted to fight with an appropriation of money for outside council on June 9.
Follow the links above for details of these lawsuits and complaints.
(PNN) -- PNN has learned that the County of Kaua`i has settled the sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Kristan C. Hirakawa and has paid her $450,000.
According to a reliable source who asked not to be identified, the check has been cut yet there has been no announcement and there is no record of the settlement which was apparently approved by the county council in an executive session at their July 27 meeting.
Hirakawa sued the county for a second time after winning her first suit against the Kaua`i Police Department and being reassigned to the liquor department where she was once again a victim of gender discrimination resulting in the current settlement, as PNN has exclusively reported.
Although settlements are public records according to the Office of Information Practices (OIP) the “recap memo” for the July 27 council meeting shows no settlement vote was taken in open session.
The agenda item, Executive Session (ES) 458, says it was held “for the purposes of deliberating, deciding, and authorizing a proposed settlement in the case of Kristan C. Hirakawa v. County of Kaua`i”.
According to OIP Opinion 89-10 regarding settlement agreements “(o)nce the litigation is concluded...all the settlement agreements must be publicly available.”
However OIP Opinion 03-07 regarding voting in executive meetings says that
Votes taken in executive meetings need not be disclosed to the public because the Sunshine Law allows minutes of executive meetings to be withheld so long as their publication would defeat the lawful purpose of the executive meeting, but no longer. Once disclosure of votes taken in executive meetings does not defeat the lawful purpose of holding an executive meeting, the votes should be disclosed.
A request for clarification was sent yesterday to OIP asking whether a lawsuit settlement vote must be taken in open session with the terms disclosed and, if not, how the public is supposed to know about the settlement. No answer was received by press time.
Also on the July 27 agenda was ES 256 which was held “for the purposes of deliberating, deciding, and authorizing a proposed settlement in the case of Jane Doe v. County of Kaua`i, EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) Charge No. 37-B-2009-00620 and FEPA NO. K-15516”.
There is no record of any settlement of this case although as PNN reported there are multiple EEOC complaints against the county including one by former deputy county attorney Margaret Hanson Sueoka was mistakenly revealed by the county in June of 2009.
EEOC complaints are confidential according to federal law which supersedes the state sunshine law.
Although a source close to council services has told PNN that the Sueoka case has been settled there is no record of the settlement.
According to law, the EEOC must give the go-ahead in order for an employment discrimination suit to be brought in circuit court.
Also outstanding is the case of Kathleen Ah Quin against the county transportation agency which the council apparently voted to fight with an appropriation of money for outside council on June 9.
Follow the links above for details of these lawsuits and complaints.
Monday, December 7, 2009
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The “old boys club” on Kaua`i is certainly not the province of a single gender anymore. The phrase is merely an anachronistic remnant of he days when only boys would and could be boys.
Today, regardless of gender, any jerkwad who has the self-initiative to step forward and “wrestle with the pigs” for a few years- developing a reputation for being willing to do and say just about anything to defend the privilege of the higher-ups by deflecting and absorbing the not-so-outrageous slings and arrows of public outrage at their future cronies' corruption- can live the dream of a becoming a “made man”- or woman... a mid-level “untouchable” as activist Ray Chuan used to call them.
But that doesn’t mean that they or their benefactors don’t still live in the dark ages when it comes to the on-the-job treatment of women- especially those that don’t respect the system that protects the protected and spits out dissidence.
A year ago this week we reported on the lawsuit of “Kaua`i Bus” driver Kathleen M. Ah Quin who has sued the Kaua`i Transpiration Agency- specifically, Executive on Transportation Janine Rapozo- for what appears to be a pervasive hostile atmosphere toward women at the agency.
As we wrote at the time:
Just as appalling as the actual discrimination is the fact the lawsuit was filed only because a year went by after Ah Quin’s filing of Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission (HCRC) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints without any attempt by the county to respond or even attempt to investigate the charges.
Then in April we reported on the case of former long time Deputy County Attorney Margaret (Hanson) Sueoka who has filed an EEOC complaint that has so far has resulted in the county attorney’s securing of $50,000 from the council to defend the charge. Her case remains under seal with the county apparently having responded to the EEOC case, unlike when Ah Quin’s case was ignored.
But the county still apparently hasn’t learned to respond to EEOC cases before they become lawsuits- where the specific details are publicly made available- and they apparently still haven’t learned much about responding to on-the-job sexual harassment claims or doing anything to stop them before they begin... much less disciplining the harassers.
These cases and others over the years however pale in comparison to the case of Kristan C. Hirakawa who, in a lawsuit filed in US District Court, alleges that even though she had won her 2001 EEOC case against the county while working for, surprise-surprise the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD), when the county, as required by the settlement, “reassigned” her to the Liquor Commission, she was further harassed at her new job.
The original filing had apparently never seen the light of reporting because EEOC complaints are considered confidential under federal law and are therefore exempt from the state’s sunshine and open records laws. The EEOC does however issue “Right to Sue” letters giving “permission” for a suit to arise from the complaint if the defendant doesn’t “settle” during the EEOC phase as it appears happened in Hirakawa’s current case.
According to the lawsuit filed through her attorneys, former state Attorney General Margery S. Bronster and local attorney Daniel G. Hempey:
(p)reviously, in approximately 2001, Plaintiff was employed as a dispatcher for the Kauai Police Department when she was sexually harassed by a co-worker. Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). As a result of the previous case, Plaintiff suffered serious physiological injury due to the sexual harassment, improper response to her legitimate complaint and loss of privacy that was inflicted on her while working in the Kauai Police Department. The matter settled without admitting fault.
Defendant County of Kauai agreed to identify and assist Plaintiff with obtaining another County job as a result of settlement negotiations in the previous case. Ultimately, Plaintiff obtained employment at the Kauai County Liquor Commission.
But that didn’t stop her new supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, from continuing the typical cycle of sexual harassment followed by retaliation for whistle-blowing or the county’s, not just indifference but, apparently active aiding and abetting of Shimatsu’s actions
According to the suit,
(Hirakawa’s) situation within the Kauai County Liquor Commission remained relentless as the discrimination and harassment increased to the point of disabling her with severe emotional distress. Per doctor's orders, she has stopped working as a result, and remains unable to work in her County job due to the Defendant's failure and/or refusal to properly address the discrimination, harassment and retaliation she has suffered in the workplace.
We could characterize or pick and edit only the highlights of the sordid details but, with no space limitation and the fact that the allegations in the suit paint such a good portrait of Shimatsu and the county’s specific alleged actions- including the county attorney’s office’s alleged failure to investigate the EEOC claim and their decisions to rather fight it without any inquiry- we will print the pertinent section of the “Predicate Facts” contained in the suit.
--------
Predicate Facts 9-36
The County of Kauai, obviously aware of Plaintiffs previous case and emotional condition, placed her in a workplace with a known sexual harasser as a co-worker and a supervisor with no prior training in sexual harassment law. On information and belief, the County of Kauai has consistently failed to meet its legal obligations to identify and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Upon relocation to the Kauai County Liquor Commission, Plaintiff was immediately subject to offensive conduct on the basis of her sex. Her supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, made sarcastic comments about sexual harassment to Plaintiff, often alluding to her history of having made a sexual harassment complaint. Shimatsu complained to Plaintiff that he had to order all of the posters [of scantily clad women] removed from the workplace because the "County made me hire you."'
During the course of her employment Plaintiff was often the subject of ridicule, sexual innuendo, sexual emails and insults from her supervisor. Shimatsu called her holistic medical practitioner a "witch doctor", and wrote an email to her saying: Use your common sense...I think you'll stay healthy...Oh yeah, and sleep with your clothes on. You could catch a cold, the flu and get pregnant without your clothes on...all bad ailments.
Shimatsu's demeaning conduct continued. After Plaintiff entered her baby into a contest (which she did not win), Shimatsu left a newspaper clipping of the winning baby in her mail bin where all her co-workers could see it. Above the picture of the winning mother and baby Shimatsu wrote a note saying: I really think the baby won because the mother was cute. With that in mind, you really need to do something about yourself...so your baby can win. Your baby did her part by being cute... it's now up to you.
In May 2007, Shimatsu called Plaintiff into his office to tell her he heard from someone that her boyfriend was getting deployed to the Middle East. He stated, "You should buy your boyfriend a lot of condoms because there are a lot of prostitutes where he'll be stationed." He followed up in an email saying he doesn't think there are really prostitutes there.
At work the sexual harassment was incessant. Shimatsu continued degrading Plaintiff calling her such names as "tonta," meaning slow, dumb or stupid, and "shibai." Shimatsu made insolent comments about Plaintiff when she made a mistake but did not treat her co-workers rudely.
When she requested vacation time to care for her four month-old baby, Shimatsu responded in a memo stating: Your request for Vac/ Ct...was approved after much discussion...Lady, you give me a headache... always asking for special treatment as a female. I kind of feel its sexual harassment and should look into it. I think that's the only way I'm going to get rid of this nasty headache...what you think?
Plaintiff noted that other employees were not subject to insolent comments when asking for time off.
On another occasion, Shimatsu emailed to Plaintiff a photo of an attractive female dressed only in a tiny, diamond studded bikini. Shimatsu typed "You Wish" on the email before sending the email to Plaintiff from his work computer.
Plaintiff was unable to be in such a virulent environment where working meant being in constant dialogue with the perpetrator. She took leave on a disability claim. She sought medical help and counseling because of the harassment and discrimination at the Kauai County Liquor Commission. Under direction of Plaintiffs medical providers, she was not allowed to resume working while the harasser remained there or until the situation had been corrected.
In June of 2007, Plaintiff reported the sexual harassment to the County and sought disability leave from work.
The County did not pay on Plaintiffs disabilities claim and did not separate her from Shimatsu.
The County has failed to properly respond to or address the alleged sexual harassment complaint raised by Plaintiff.
The County broke its own County policy on sexual harassment as promised to Plaintiff and other County employees in a number of respects. First, the County promises that complaints of sexual harassment will be investigated within two weeks time. No timely investigation was done in Plaintiff's case. Secondly, County policy promises that the findings and results of an investigation into a complaint of sexual harassment will be made available to the complainant. The results of any investigation into sexual harassment have still not been made available to Plaintiff. And thirdly, County policy promises that corrective action will be taken when a County employee suffers from sexual harassment. On information and belief, no such corrective action has been taken.
Upon information and belief, the County's policy on sexual harassment in the workplace was intended to comply with applicable law.
Furthermore, the County ignored State and Federal law regarding the matter being pursued. The County instead protected the accused, her supervisor Shimatsu, offering no remedial action to Plaintiff and failing to conduct even a basic investigation for several months.
In many cases, County policy directs employees to report allegations of sexual harassment to the Office of the County Attorney to ensure, among other things, that the County acts in compliance with State and Federal law. However, in this case, the Office of the County Attorney chose to arbitrarily dispute Plaintiff's claim without adequate investigation and contrary to State and Federal law.
Upon information and belief, the County used a woman with no prior training or experience in sexual harassment investigations to perform the investigation of Plaintiffs complaint of sexual harassment.
A few months later, Plaintiff, through counsel, asked the Office of the County Attorney if she could have the results of its investigation(s) in Plaintiff's report of sexual harassment. The request was made pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. Ch. 92F et seq. (The Hawaii Public Records Act), but the Office of the County Attorney failed and/or refused to provide the results of the investigation to Plaintiff's attorney.
In August 2007, the County contacted Plaintiff and informed her that an interview was forthcoming, but it wasn't until September 14, 2007 when Ann Wooten, the chosen investigator, interviewed Plaintiff.
On information and belief, the County never asked Shimatsu if the Plaintiffs allegations against him were true.
The investigation was only performed after Plaintiff's disability pay had expired. The County left Plaintiff, a single mother of two, in a precarious financial position because of the delay in investigating her complaint and the lack of corrective action taken.
Plaintiff remains unable to resume working in direct contact with the same supervisor. Her accumulated losses approximate $50,000.00 even after mitigating wages lost by securing lower-paying employment. Her new position pays significantly less than her employment with the County.
The aforesaid events have changed the course of Plaintiff's life and career.
Plaintiff has complied with the administrative procedural requirements for maintaining a civil action for discrimination on the basis of sex and for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Plaintiff filed the aforesaid charges with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions, and the EEOC has made a determination of cause to believe that the alleged sexual harassment occurred.
On November 13, 2008 the EEOC found that "The Commission's investigation determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female."
Thereafter the EEOC issued a "Right to Sue" letter and Plaintiff, and timely filed this action with 90 days of issuance of her Right to Sue letter, issued on March 3, 2009.
At all relevant times herein, the acts of the County were undertaken within the course and scope of Plaintiff's employment.
Today, regardless of gender, any jerkwad who has the self-initiative to step forward and “wrestle with the pigs” for a few years- developing a reputation for being willing to do and say just about anything to defend the privilege of the higher-ups by deflecting and absorbing the not-so-outrageous slings and arrows of public outrage at their future cronies' corruption- can live the dream of a becoming a “made man”- or woman... a mid-level “untouchable” as activist Ray Chuan used to call them.
But that doesn’t mean that they or their benefactors don’t still live in the dark ages when it comes to the on-the-job treatment of women- especially those that don’t respect the system that protects the protected and spits out dissidence.
A year ago this week we reported on the lawsuit of “Kaua`i Bus” driver Kathleen M. Ah Quin who has sued the Kaua`i Transpiration Agency- specifically, Executive on Transportation Janine Rapozo- for what appears to be a pervasive hostile atmosphere toward women at the agency.
As we wrote at the time:
Just as appalling as the actual discrimination is the fact the lawsuit was filed only because a year went by after Ah Quin’s filing of Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission (HCRC) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints without any attempt by the county to respond or even attempt to investigate the charges.
Then in April we reported on the case of former long time Deputy County Attorney Margaret (Hanson) Sueoka who has filed an EEOC complaint that has so far has resulted in the county attorney’s securing of $50,000 from the council to defend the charge. Her case remains under seal with the county apparently having responded to the EEOC case, unlike when Ah Quin’s case was ignored.
But the county still apparently hasn’t learned to respond to EEOC cases before they become lawsuits- where the specific details are publicly made available- and they apparently still haven’t learned much about responding to on-the-job sexual harassment claims or doing anything to stop them before they begin... much less disciplining the harassers.
These cases and others over the years however pale in comparison to the case of Kristan C. Hirakawa who, in a lawsuit filed in US District Court, alleges that even though she had won her 2001 EEOC case against the county while working for, surprise-surprise the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD), when the county, as required by the settlement, “reassigned” her to the Liquor Commission, she was further harassed at her new job.
The original filing had apparently never seen the light of reporting because EEOC complaints are considered confidential under federal law and are therefore exempt from the state’s sunshine and open records laws. The EEOC does however issue “Right to Sue” letters giving “permission” for a suit to arise from the complaint if the defendant doesn’t “settle” during the EEOC phase as it appears happened in Hirakawa’s current case.
According to the lawsuit filed through her attorneys, former state Attorney General Margery S. Bronster and local attorney Daniel G. Hempey:
(p)reviously, in approximately 2001, Plaintiff was employed as a dispatcher for the Kauai Police Department when she was sexually harassed by a co-worker. Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). As a result of the previous case, Plaintiff suffered serious physiological injury due to the sexual harassment, improper response to her legitimate complaint and loss of privacy that was inflicted on her while working in the Kauai Police Department. The matter settled without admitting fault.
Defendant County of Kauai agreed to identify and assist Plaintiff with obtaining another County job as a result of settlement negotiations in the previous case. Ultimately, Plaintiff obtained employment at the Kauai County Liquor Commission.
But that didn’t stop her new supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, from continuing the typical cycle of sexual harassment followed by retaliation for whistle-blowing or the county’s, not just indifference but, apparently active aiding and abetting of Shimatsu’s actions
According to the suit,
(Hirakawa’s) situation within the Kauai County Liquor Commission remained relentless as the discrimination and harassment increased to the point of disabling her with severe emotional distress. Per doctor's orders, she has stopped working as a result, and remains unable to work in her County job due to the Defendant's failure and/or refusal to properly address the discrimination, harassment and retaliation she has suffered in the workplace.
We could characterize or pick and edit only the highlights of the sordid details but, with no space limitation and the fact that the allegations in the suit paint such a good portrait of Shimatsu and the county’s specific alleged actions- including the county attorney’s office’s alleged failure to investigate the EEOC claim and their decisions to rather fight it without any inquiry- we will print the pertinent section of the “Predicate Facts” contained in the suit.
--------
Predicate Facts 9-36
The County of Kauai, obviously aware of Plaintiffs previous case and emotional condition, placed her in a workplace with a known sexual harasser as a co-worker and a supervisor with no prior training in sexual harassment law. On information and belief, the County of Kauai has consistently failed to meet its legal obligations to identify and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Upon relocation to the Kauai County Liquor Commission, Plaintiff was immediately subject to offensive conduct on the basis of her sex. Her supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, made sarcastic comments about sexual harassment to Plaintiff, often alluding to her history of having made a sexual harassment complaint. Shimatsu complained to Plaintiff that he had to order all of the posters [of scantily clad women] removed from the workplace because the "County made me hire you."'
During the course of her employment Plaintiff was often the subject of ridicule, sexual innuendo, sexual emails and insults from her supervisor. Shimatsu called her holistic medical practitioner a "witch doctor", and wrote an email to her saying: Use your common sense...I think you'll stay healthy...Oh yeah, and sleep with your clothes on. You could catch a cold, the flu and get pregnant without your clothes on...all bad ailments.
Shimatsu's demeaning conduct continued. After Plaintiff entered her baby into a contest (which she did not win), Shimatsu left a newspaper clipping of the winning baby in her mail bin where all her co-workers could see it. Above the picture of the winning mother and baby Shimatsu wrote a note saying: I really think the baby won because the mother was cute. With that in mind, you really need to do something about yourself...so your baby can win. Your baby did her part by being cute... it's now up to you.
In May 2007, Shimatsu called Plaintiff into his office to tell her he heard from someone that her boyfriend was getting deployed to the Middle East. He stated, "You should buy your boyfriend a lot of condoms because there are a lot of prostitutes where he'll be stationed." He followed up in an email saying he doesn't think there are really prostitutes there.
At work the sexual harassment was incessant. Shimatsu continued degrading Plaintiff calling her such names as "tonta," meaning slow, dumb or stupid, and "shibai." Shimatsu made insolent comments about Plaintiff when she made a mistake but did not treat her co-workers rudely.
When she requested vacation time to care for her four month-old baby, Shimatsu responded in a memo stating: Your request for Vac/ Ct...was approved after much discussion...Lady, you give me a headache... always asking for special treatment as a female. I kind of feel its sexual harassment and should look into it. I think that's the only way I'm going to get rid of this nasty headache...what you think?
Plaintiff noted that other employees were not subject to insolent comments when asking for time off.
On another occasion, Shimatsu emailed to Plaintiff a photo of an attractive female dressed only in a tiny, diamond studded bikini. Shimatsu typed "You Wish" on the email before sending the email to Plaintiff from his work computer.
Plaintiff was unable to be in such a virulent environment where working meant being in constant dialogue with the perpetrator. She took leave on a disability claim. She sought medical help and counseling because of the harassment and discrimination at the Kauai County Liquor Commission. Under direction of Plaintiffs medical providers, she was not allowed to resume working while the harasser remained there or until the situation had been corrected.
In June of 2007, Plaintiff reported the sexual harassment to the County and sought disability leave from work.
The County did not pay on Plaintiffs disabilities claim and did not separate her from Shimatsu.
The County has failed to properly respond to or address the alleged sexual harassment complaint raised by Plaintiff.
The County broke its own County policy on sexual harassment as promised to Plaintiff and other County employees in a number of respects. First, the County promises that complaints of sexual harassment will be investigated within two weeks time. No timely investigation was done in Plaintiff's case. Secondly, County policy promises that the findings and results of an investigation into a complaint of sexual harassment will be made available to the complainant. The results of any investigation into sexual harassment have still not been made available to Plaintiff. And thirdly, County policy promises that corrective action will be taken when a County employee suffers from sexual harassment. On information and belief, no such corrective action has been taken.
Upon information and belief, the County's policy on sexual harassment in the workplace was intended to comply with applicable law.
Furthermore, the County ignored State and Federal law regarding the matter being pursued. The County instead protected the accused, her supervisor Shimatsu, offering no remedial action to Plaintiff and failing to conduct even a basic investigation for several months.
In many cases, County policy directs employees to report allegations of sexual harassment to the Office of the County Attorney to ensure, among other things, that the County acts in compliance with State and Federal law. However, in this case, the Office of the County Attorney chose to arbitrarily dispute Plaintiff's claim without adequate investigation and contrary to State and Federal law.
Upon information and belief, the County used a woman with no prior training or experience in sexual harassment investigations to perform the investigation of Plaintiffs complaint of sexual harassment.
A few months later, Plaintiff, through counsel, asked the Office of the County Attorney if she could have the results of its investigation(s) in Plaintiff's report of sexual harassment. The request was made pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. Ch. 92F et seq. (The Hawaii Public Records Act), but the Office of the County Attorney failed and/or refused to provide the results of the investigation to Plaintiff's attorney.
In August 2007, the County contacted Plaintiff and informed her that an interview was forthcoming, but it wasn't until September 14, 2007 when Ann Wooten, the chosen investigator, interviewed Plaintiff.
On information and belief, the County never asked Shimatsu if the Plaintiffs allegations against him were true.
The investigation was only performed after Plaintiff's disability pay had expired. The County left Plaintiff, a single mother of two, in a precarious financial position because of the delay in investigating her complaint and the lack of corrective action taken.
Plaintiff remains unable to resume working in direct contact with the same supervisor. Her accumulated losses approximate $50,000.00 even after mitigating wages lost by securing lower-paying employment. Her new position pays significantly less than her employment with the County.
The aforesaid events have changed the course of Plaintiff's life and career.
Plaintiff has complied with the administrative procedural requirements for maintaining a civil action for discrimination on the basis of sex and for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Plaintiff filed the aforesaid charges with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions, and the EEOC has made a determination of cause to believe that the alleged sexual harassment occurred.
On November 13, 2008 the EEOC found that "The Commission's investigation determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female."
Thereafter the EEOC issued a "Right to Sue" letter and Plaintiff, and timely filed this action with 90 days of issuance of her Right to Sue letter, issued on March 3, 2009.
At all relevant times herein, the acts of the County were undertaken within the course and scope of Plaintiff's employment.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
COURTING DISASTER
COURTING DISASTER: Another day another charge of sexual harassment in government offices on Kaua`i this time at the state judiciary as reported in today’s local newspaper.
While the county has racked up at least three current sexual harassment suits- those of Kristan C. Hirakawa, Kathleen M. Ah Quin and Margaret (Hanson) Sueoka- as well as at least two thus far confidential Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cases, every time we’ve reported on them we’ve heard from judiciary employees that the county’s penchant for hiring and protecting harassers is nothing compared to that of the state court system on Kaua`i.
So the suit against former Deputy Chief Court Administrator Ernest Barreira, comes as no surprise. The fact that he’s a “former” deputy and was, according to the suit, fired for his actions against Leanne Rosa speaks volumes as to the veracity of her claims as does the presence of a lawsuit which means that she has been granted “a right to sue” by the EEOC and the Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission (HCRC).
But, we thought, at least it’s not the county this time.
Until, that is, we read the penultimate paragraph in the newspaper story:
Barreira said in a brief telephone interview Monday that he is soon to begin a new job with the County of Kaua`i Department of Finance, as a procurement officer.
Are you freakin’ kidding? How many ways is that wrong?
First of all is the obvious liability given the guys history as a serial harasser as the suit alleges, which is exacerbated by the repeated failure of the county to do anything about it’s own complaints as we reported last December. The council has already appropriated untold dollars to fight the current suits and complaints and will probably be on the hook for huge settlements in some if not all of them.
But the question of how this guy got a civil service job in the finance department with a record of being fired and sued for harassment just further confirms the corrupt hiring practices of Malcolm “Mel” Fernandez’s Personnel Services Division as we’ve detailed here, here and here.
Looks like we’ll probably be paying for this too. Aren’t ya glad to be a Kaua`i taxpayer?
While the county has racked up at least three current sexual harassment suits- those of Kristan C. Hirakawa, Kathleen M. Ah Quin and Margaret (Hanson) Sueoka- as well as at least two thus far confidential Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cases, every time we’ve reported on them we’ve heard from judiciary employees that the county’s penchant for hiring and protecting harassers is nothing compared to that of the state court system on Kaua`i.
So the suit against former Deputy Chief Court Administrator Ernest Barreira, comes as no surprise. The fact that he’s a “former” deputy and was, according to the suit, fired for his actions against Leanne Rosa speaks volumes as to the veracity of her claims as does the presence of a lawsuit which means that she has been granted “a right to sue” by the EEOC and the Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission (HCRC).
But, we thought, at least it’s not the county this time.
Until, that is, we read the penultimate paragraph in the newspaper story:
Barreira said in a brief telephone interview Monday that he is soon to begin a new job with the County of Kaua`i Department of Finance, as a procurement officer.
Are you freakin’ kidding? How many ways is that wrong?
First of all is the obvious liability given the guys history as a serial harasser as the suit alleges, which is exacerbated by the repeated failure of the county to do anything about it’s own complaints as we reported last December. The council has already appropriated untold dollars to fight the current suits and complaints and will probably be on the hook for huge settlements in some if not all of them.
But the question of how this guy got a civil service job in the finance department with a record of being fired and sued for harassment just further confirms the corrupt hiring practices of Malcolm “Mel” Fernandez’s Personnel Services Division as we’ve detailed here, here and here.
Looks like we’ll probably be paying for this too. Aren’t ya glad to be a Kaua`i taxpayer?
Monday, October 18, 2010
(PNN) $250,000 SETTLEMENT IN “DOE V COK” EEOC CASE BEGAN WITH ALLEGED ‘02 ASSAULT BY COUNTY CLERK NAKAMURA UPON COUNCIL’S DEPUTY COUNTY ATTORNEY
$250,000 SETTLEMENT IN “DOE V COK” EEOC CASE BEGAN WITH ALLEGED ‘02 ASSAULT BY COUNTY CLERK NAKAMURA UPON COUNCIL’S DEPUTY COUNTY ATTORNEY
“DOE” ILLEGALLY IDED AS HANSON-SUEOKA BY CA CASTILLO, WHO FIRED HER IN ‘08
by Andy Parx
(PNN) -- The $250,000 settlement of a “hostile/violent work environment” Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint identified only as “Jane Doe vs. County of Kaua`i” was actually a complaint filed by former Deputy County Attorney Margaret Hanson-Sueoka according to records illegally revealed by County Attorney Al Castillo.
The case apparently goes back to early 2002 during the waning days of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s administration but the precipitating incident occurred, not in administration offices where the county attorney’s offices are housed but in the “workplace” of council services.
According to numerous council services employees, past reporters and “regulars” at council meetings at the time, then and present County Clerk Peter Nakamura allegedly “beat up” Hanson-Sueoka, who was at the time his “girlfriend”, causing Hanson to seek a restraining order against Nakamura.
Though some alleged that at the time Nakamura was actually arrested others claim that he was not, with some of those saying that this was due to his position and Hanson-Sueoka’s refusal to press charges due to fear of repercussions on her job situation. Almost all however agreed in maintaining that Hanson had obtained a protective restraining order against Nakamura after telling people she was assaulted by him.
Although the county clerk heads the “council services” office and runs every aspect of council doings including hiring and firing of personnel, technically Hanson-Sueoka’s boss was the county attorney although the attorney assigned to the council often works closely and under the supervision of the county clerk.
But EEOC law also covers those that, while technically are not “superiors, but those that act as such.
An examination of county records and newspaper articles indicates Hanson-Sueoka was soon terminated from her plum assignment as attorney for the council and, when the Bryan Baptiste administration took over in December of 2002, she was retained as a deputy in new CA Lani Nakazawa’s office but assigned to attend various long and often boring and routine board and commission meetings to provide attorney advice.
Hanson-Sueoka remained with the office when Nakazawa left and was replaced by CA Matthew Pyun, and was the main county attorney involved in the infamous removal from office of Police Commission Chair Michael Ching- as well as the cover-up of the hearing judge’s full report exonerating Ching- and the resulting politically motivated firing of Police Chief KC Lum.
But when Bernard Carvalho was elected as mayor in 2008 and appointed Castillo, Hanson was fired for no stated reason, although her EEOC case presumably maintains it was retaliatory for whistle-blowing for past the incidents.
The EEOC complaint was filed after Hanson-Sueoka’s firing by Castillo and confirmation of the $250,000 award- along with the confirmation that it was a hostile/violent workplace compliant- came at least week’s council meeting as part of a presentation by Councilpersons Lani Kawahara and Tim Bynum on the pervasive disregard for sexual harassment and hostile work environment laws by the county.
At the meeting the pair cited the “Jane Doe” case and that of Kristan Hirakawa- a case detailed by PNN over the past year- saying cases against the county are rarely if ever even investigated and that harassers are apparently never disciplined much less fired even after judgments against the county.
The incident in 2002 was the talk of the county building at the time including among councilmembers who were called into executive session to discuss personnel issues within council services although none would confirm publicly that the subject was Nakamura who remains on the job today despite the settlement.
Though the incident occurred during the time when then Councilperson Ron Kouchi was the chair of the council after the 2002 election- where he ran and lost in a bid to be mayor- current Chair Kaipo Asing took over and has remained chair ever since okaying, along with the rest of the council, various settlements for harassment of county employees as well as reappointing Nakamura as county clerk every two years.
Though EEOC cases are, by federal law, to be kept confidential, after firing Hanson-Sueoka Castillo twice revealed that indeed she was the EEOC plaintiff, the first time on the council agenda for April 22, 2009 where he requested executive session (ES) 382 which read in part,
the Office of the County Attorney requests an executive session with the Council to provide the Council a briefing on Margaret H. Sueoka v. County of Kaua`i, EEOC Charge No. 486-2009-00268 and/or related matters and/or subsequent legal proceedings resulting in any way from this matter.
Then, even after a rejected request from PNN to examine the EEOC case files- where we were told by the CA’s office that federal law maintains strict confidentiality for EEOC complaints, superseding the state sunshine law- in a local newspaper article on August 28, 2009 about the $3 million that has been spent on outside counsel to defend lawsuits against the county, reporter Michael Levine wrote:
“Since I’ve been here, the only (lawsuit) that is mine is the Sueoka case, and that’s one where we really didn’t have a choice,” Castillo said, in reference to an equal employment opportunity claim filed against the county by former Deputy County Attorney Margaret Sueoka. He said having a staff attorney handle the case could constitute a conflict of interest.
But recently all references on council agendas to the Hanson-Sueoka case were noted as “Jane Doe vs. County of Kaua`i” although both the recent postings and the one for April of 2009 referred to the same “Charge number”, 486-2009-00268.
Talk regarding the original incident when Nakamura was alleged to have “beat up” Hanson- who has since married and changed her name to Sueoka- was pervasive at the county building in 2002 when PNN was actively covering weekly council meetings and, while more than a dozen people repeated the story about Nakamura and Hanson, PNN has not been able to confirm the incidents through documentation.
It should be noted that this report was compiled after speaking to many knowledgeable sources both in 2002 and this week and after a review of our notes from that era. It is the best available rendering of the truth of what has occurred in this case. All undocumented allegation are just that- undocumented allegations.
“DOE” ILLEGALLY IDED AS HANSON-SUEOKA BY CA CASTILLO, WHO FIRED HER IN ‘08
by Andy Parx
(PNN) -- The $250,000 settlement of a “hostile/violent work environment” Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint identified only as “Jane Doe vs. County of Kaua`i” was actually a complaint filed by former Deputy County Attorney Margaret Hanson-Sueoka according to records illegally revealed by County Attorney Al Castillo.
The case apparently goes back to early 2002 during the waning days of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s administration but the precipitating incident occurred, not in administration offices where the county attorney’s offices are housed but in the “workplace” of council services.
According to numerous council services employees, past reporters and “regulars” at council meetings at the time, then and present County Clerk Peter Nakamura allegedly “beat up” Hanson-Sueoka, who was at the time his “girlfriend”, causing Hanson to seek a restraining order against Nakamura.
Though some alleged that at the time Nakamura was actually arrested others claim that he was not, with some of those saying that this was due to his position and Hanson-Sueoka’s refusal to press charges due to fear of repercussions on her job situation. Almost all however agreed in maintaining that Hanson had obtained a protective restraining order against Nakamura after telling people she was assaulted by him.
Although the county clerk heads the “council services” office and runs every aspect of council doings including hiring and firing of personnel, technically Hanson-Sueoka’s boss was the county attorney although the attorney assigned to the council often works closely and under the supervision of the county clerk.
But EEOC law also covers those that, while technically are not “superiors, but those that act as such.
An examination of county records and newspaper articles indicates Hanson-Sueoka was soon terminated from her plum assignment as attorney for the council and, when the Bryan Baptiste administration took over in December of 2002, she was retained as a deputy in new CA Lani Nakazawa’s office but assigned to attend various long and often boring and routine board and commission meetings to provide attorney advice.
Hanson-Sueoka remained with the office when Nakazawa left and was replaced by CA Matthew Pyun, and was the main county attorney involved in the infamous removal from office of Police Commission Chair Michael Ching- as well as the cover-up of the hearing judge’s full report exonerating Ching- and the resulting politically motivated firing of Police Chief KC Lum.
But when Bernard Carvalho was elected as mayor in 2008 and appointed Castillo, Hanson was fired for no stated reason, although her EEOC case presumably maintains it was retaliatory for whistle-blowing for past the incidents.
The EEOC complaint was filed after Hanson-Sueoka’s firing by Castillo and confirmation of the $250,000 award- along with the confirmation that it was a hostile/violent workplace compliant- came at least week’s council meeting as part of a presentation by Councilpersons Lani Kawahara and Tim Bynum on the pervasive disregard for sexual harassment and hostile work environment laws by the county.
At the meeting the pair cited the “Jane Doe” case and that of Kristan Hirakawa- a case detailed by PNN over the past year- saying cases against the county are rarely if ever even investigated and that harassers are apparently never disciplined much less fired even after judgments against the county.
The incident in 2002 was the talk of the county building at the time including among councilmembers who were called into executive session to discuss personnel issues within council services although none would confirm publicly that the subject was Nakamura who remains on the job today despite the settlement.
Though the incident occurred during the time when then Councilperson Ron Kouchi was the chair of the council after the 2002 election- where he ran and lost in a bid to be mayor- current Chair Kaipo Asing took over and has remained chair ever since okaying, along with the rest of the council, various settlements for harassment of county employees as well as reappointing Nakamura as county clerk every two years.
Though EEOC cases are, by federal law, to be kept confidential, after firing Hanson-Sueoka Castillo twice revealed that indeed she was the EEOC plaintiff, the first time on the council agenda for April 22, 2009 where he requested executive session (ES) 382 which read in part,
the Office of the County Attorney requests an executive session with the Council to provide the Council a briefing on Margaret H. Sueoka v. County of Kaua`i, EEOC Charge No. 486-2009-00268 and/or related matters and/or subsequent legal proceedings resulting in any way from this matter.
Then, even after a rejected request from PNN to examine the EEOC case files- where we were told by the CA’s office that federal law maintains strict confidentiality for EEOC complaints, superseding the state sunshine law- in a local newspaper article on August 28, 2009 about the $3 million that has been spent on outside counsel to defend lawsuits against the county, reporter Michael Levine wrote:
“Since I’ve been here, the only (lawsuit) that is mine is the Sueoka case, and that’s one where we really didn’t have a choice,” Castillo said, in reference to an equal employment opportunity claim filed against the county by former Deputy County Attorney Margaret Sueoka. He said having a staff attorney handle the case could constitute a conflict of interest.
But recently all references on council agendas to the Hanson-Sueoka case were noted as “Jane Doe vs. County of Kaua`i” although both the recent postings and the one for April of 2009 referred to the same “Charge number”, 486-2009-00268.
Talk regarding the original incident when Nakamura was alleged to have “beat up” Hanson- who has since married and changed her name to Sueoka- was pervasive at the county building in 2002 when PNN was actively covering weekly council meetings and, while more than a dozen people repeated the story about Nakamura and Hanson, PNN has not been able to confirm the incidents through documentation.
It should be noted that this report was compiled after speaking to many knowledgeable sources both in 2002 and this week and after a review of our notes from that era. It is the best available rendering of the truth of what has occurred in this case. All undocumented allegation are just that- undocumented allegations.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
DON’T YOU WORRY YOUR PRETTY LITTLE HEAD ABOUT IT
DON’T YOU WORRY YOUR PRETTY LITTLE HEAD ABOUT IT: The cesspool of sexual harassment in Kaua`i county government is nothing new to our readers.
But worse than the harassment itself and the retaliation, has been the utter lack of attention to the pervasive problem and indeed active attempts to make the growing list of complainants just go away.
Today the county council will, most likely, compound the problem by going into executive session to hear about the cases and then give the okay to the county attorney’s office to fight two of the more prominent lawsuits, those of “Kaua`i Bus” driver Kathleen M. Ah Quin and former Kaua`i Police Department dispatcher and then Liquor Department employee Kristan C. Hirakawa who now is known as Kristan C Suniga.
Also outstanding is the case of Margaret Hanson Sueoka who has filed a case with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as we exclusively detailed in June of 2009.
Ah Quin’s case, which we reported in December of 2008 remains the same but Suniga case- which we exhaustively detailed in December of 2009- originally filed in federal district court, has now moved to state circuit court.
And while the original case alleged one of the more nauseating tales of harassment and retaliation – in two different jobs no less- and told of a distinct lack of interest on the part of the county, the new case is, if possible, even more unsettling with details of harassment by the county attorney’s office front and center.
Suniga’s story of harassment began in KPD where she won a different suit and as a result she was moved to the Liquor Department where it didn’t just continue but escalated under her boss Dexter Shimatsu.
Yet that was only the beginning.
According to the suit:
Instead of investigating and remedying Plaintiffs sexual harassment claim, the County instead protected the accused supervisor, Shimatsu, by offering no remedial action to Plaintiff and. failing to conduct even a basic investigation for several months. The County failed to conduct an unbiased investigation to this day.
That’s where the much maligned county attorney’s office came into the picture and, the suit alleges, it compounded the already outrageous treatment of Suniga.
The suit goes on to say:
In many cases, County policy directs employees to report allegations of sexual harassment to the Office of the County Attorney, which is charged with allegedly overseeing an unbiased investigation of the matter. Thus, the Office of the County Attorney is responsible both for the Human Resource function of ensuring independent investigations of complaints of sexual harassment for the protection of county employees, while at the same time the Office of the County Attorney must defend the County against claims of improper sexual harassment in the workplace. In Plaintiff's case, the Office of the County Attorney did not make good on the County's promise of a fair investigation and appropriate corrective action, but instead the Office of the County Attorney, in 2007, used its position of trust and responsibility to investigate Plaintiffs complaint of sexual harassment in an adversarial manner, designed to minimize liability to the County by casting doubt on Plaintiff's character and allegations. 28. In August of 2007, the County contacted Plaintiff and informed her that the County Would conduct a sex) harassment/hostile work place investigation based on Plaintiff's allegations. The County offered Plaintiff the choice of one of three investigators, without disclosing their relative training and experience investigating sexual harassment claims.
Given no information as to each proposed investigator's background, Plaintiff chose Ann Wooton ("Wooton") based on the fact that Wooton was the only female investigator offered by the County.
Wooton is a county-employed grant writer/social worker, with no prior training or experience in sexual harassment investigations. The Office of the County Attorney oversaw an investigation into Plaintiff's complaints that was so biased that the investigator did not even ask Shimatsu the most basic questions such as if he had sent the sexually harassing emails and memoranda Based on this sham of an investigation, Wooton then concluded the investigation by finding, among other things, that Plaintiff's allegations could not be substantiated due to a lack of evidence.
The suit alleges that it took two months for Wooton to even interview Suniga and that even though she was entitled to the results of the investigation under the state’s open records law, “the Office of the County Attorney remarkably responded that the investigation would not be produced because, inter alia, it was prepared in anticipation of litigation”.
As if that wasn’t enough the next episode described in the suit was truly frightening
In the fall of 2008, an unknown individual or individuals hacked into Plaintiffs financial accounts, social networking accounts and various retail merchant accounts. The hacker made unauthorized purchases on Plaintiff's credit cards, and created and posted documents and web-pages online that falsely suggested that Plaintiff was not unable to work for Defendant, but that she was instead making significant money by moonlighting or working for the private sector while she claimed to be suffering from a hostile workplace at the Liquor Department. The hacker(s) took various actions with regard to Plaintiff's accounts, which appear to be designed so as to discredit Plaintiffs claims against the County.
Plaintiff reported the series of unauthorized hacks into her accounts and expenditures on her credit cards to the Kauai Police Department However, on information and belief, the Kauai Police Department (the defendant in Plaintiff's former case) took a report, but otherwise has done nothing to investigate or solve Plaintiff's reports of identity theft. Thereafter, the County sought to use the fabricated documents manufactured by the hacker(s) against Plaintiff.
The suit’s narrative sums up Suniga’s situation by saying:
The County, through the actions of supervisor Shimatsu, the Office of the County Attorney in managing the response to Plaintiffs complaints, and the Kauai Police Department in refusing to respond to her police report, has left Plaintiff, a single mother of two, in a precarious financial position. Plaintiff's mental and physical health has suffered due to the County's action and inactions.
Plaintiff remains unable to resume working in direct contact with Shimatsu.
The aforesaid events have changed the course of Plaintiff's life and career.
Plaintiff has complied with the administrative procedural requirements for maintaining a civil action for discrimination on the basis of sex for retaliation under Haw. Rev. Stat. § 378 et. seq. Plaintiff dual filed the aforesaid charges with the United States EEOC and the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission ("HCRC"). The EEOC made a determination of cause to believe that the alleged sexual harassment occurred. On March 17, 2010 the HCRC issued Plaintiff the notice of right to sue.
On November 13, 2008, the EEOC found that "The Commission's investigation determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female."
Plaintiff timely filed this action within 90 days of issuance of her right to sue letter from the HCRC issued on March 17, 2010.
The County retaliated against Plaintiff by: 1) having the Office of the County Attorney direct an incomplete and inadequate investigation into Plaintiff's complaint of sexual harassment; 2) the Kauai Police Department's failure to investigate Plaintiff's complaint that someone hacked into Plaintiffs financial accounts and misappropriated her image and personal accounts; and 3) failing to timely promote Plaintiff from Trainee to Investigator I despite Plaintiff receiving "More Than Satisfactory" ratings from Shimatsu.
Tomorrow, in granting the county attorney’s request for more money to fight rather than settle the two suits, the council will no doubt be adding another misdeed to the list.
----------
We’re taking tomorrow off and possibly taking a long weekend although we may get to post something Friday. If not we’ll be back Monday.
But worse than the harassment itself and the retaliation, has been the utter lack of attention to the pervasive problem and indeed active attempts to make the growing list of complainants just go away.
Today the county council will, most likely, compound the problem by going into executive session to hear about the cases and then give the okay to the county attorney’s office to fight two of the more prominent lawsuits, those of “Kaua`i Bus” driver Kathleen M. Ah Quin and former Kaua`i Police Department dispatcher and then Liquor Department employee Kristan C. Hirakawa who now is known as Kristan C Suniga.
Also outstanding is the case of Margaret Hanson Sueoka who has filed a case with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as we exclusively detailed in June of 2009.
Ah Quin’s case, which we reported in December of 2008 remains the same but Suniga case- which we exhaustively detailed in December of 2009- originally filed in federal district court, has now moved to state circuit court.
And while the original case alleged one of the more nauseating tales of harassment and retaliation – in two different jobs no less- and told of a distinct lack of interest on the part of the county, the new case is, if possible, even more unsettling with details of harassment by the county attorney’s office front and center.
Suniga’s story of harassment began in KPD where she won a different suit and as a result she was moved to the Liquor Department where it didn’t just continue but escalated under her boss Dexter Shimatsu.
Yet that was only the beginning.
According to the suit:
Instead of investigating and remedying Plaintiffs sexual harassment claim, the County instead protected the accused supervisor, Shimatsu, by offering no remedial action to Plaintiff and. failing to conduct even a basic investigation for several months. The County failed to conduct an unbiased investigation to this day.
That’s where the much maligned county attorney’s office came into the picture and, the suit alleges, it compounded the already outrageous treatment of Suniga.
The suit goes on to say:
In many cases, County policy directs employees to report allegations of sexual harassment to the Office of the County Attorney, which is charged with allegedly overseeing an unbiased investigation of the matter. Thus, the Office of the County Attorney is responsible both for the Human Resource function of ensuring independent investigations of complaints of sexual harassment for the protection of county employees, while at the same time the Office of the County Attorney must defend the County against claims of improper sexual harassment in the workplace. In Plaintiff's case, the Office of the County Attorney did not make good on the County's promise of a fair investigation and appropriate corrective action, but instead the Office of the County Attorney, in 2007, used its position of trust and responsibility to investigate Plaintiffs complaint of sexual harassment in an adversarial manner, designed to minimize liability to the County by casting doubt on Plaintiff's character and allegations. 28. In August of 2007, the County contacted Plaintiff and informed her that the County Would conduct a sex) harassment/hostile work place investigation based on Plaintiff's allegations. The County offered Plaintiff the choice of one of three investigators, without disclosing their relative training and experience investigating sexual harassment claims.
Given no information as to each proposed investigator's background, Plaintiff chose Ann Wooton ("Wooton") based on the fact that Wooton was the only female investigator offered by the County.
Wooton is a county-employed grant writer/social worker, with no prior training or experience in sexual harassment investigations. The Office of the County Attorney oversaw an investigation into Plaintiff's complaints that was so biased that the investigator did not even ask Shimatsu the most basic questions such as if he had sent the sexually harassing emails and memoranda Based on this sham of an investigation, Wooton then concluded the investigation by finding, among other things, that Plaintiff's allegations could not be substantiated due to a lack of evidence.
The suit alleges that it took two months for Wooton to even interview Suniga and that even though she was entitled to the results of the investigation under the state’s open records law, “the Office of the County Attorney remarkably responded that the investigation would not be produced because, inter alia, it was prepared in anticipation of litigation”.
As if that wasn’t enough the next episode described in the suit was truly frightening
In the fall of 2008, an unknown individual or individuals hacked into Plaintiffs financial accounts, social networking accounts and various retail merchant accounts. The hacker made unauthorized purchases on Plaintiff's credit cards, and created and posted documents and web-pages online that falsely suggested that Plaintiff was not unable to work for Defendant, but that she was instead making significant money by moonlighting or working for the private sector while she claimed to be suffering from a hostile workplace at the Liquor Department. The hacker(s) took various actions with regard to Plaintiff's accounts, which appear to be designed so as to discredit Plaintiffs claims against the County.
Plaintiff reported the series of unauthorized hacks into her accounts and expenditures on her credit cards to the Kauai Police Department However, on information and belief, the Kauai Police Department (the defendant in Plaintiff's former case) took a report, but otherwise has done nothing to investigate or solve Plaintiff's reports of identity theft. Thereafter, the County sought to use the fabricated documents manufactured by the hacker(s) against Plaintiff.
The suit’s narrative sums up Suniga’s situation by saying:
The County, through the actions of supervisor Shimatsu, the Office of the County Attorney in managing the response to Plaintiffs complaints, and the Kauai Police Department in refusing to respond to her police report, has left Plaintiff, a single mother of two, in a precarious financial position. Plaintiff's mental and physical health has suffered due to the County's action and inactions.
Plaintiff remains unable to resume working in direct contact with Shimatsu.
The aforesaid events have changed the course of Plaintiff's life and career.
Plaintiff has complied with the administrative procedural requirements for maintaining a civil action for discrimination on the basis of sex for retaliation under Haw. Rev. Stat. § 378 et. seq. Plaintiff dual filed the aforesaid charges with the United States EEOC and the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission ("HCRC"). The EEOC made a determination of cause to believe that the alleged sexual harassment occurred. On March 17, 2010 the HCRC issued Plaintiff the notice of right to sue.
On November 13, 2008, the EEOC found that "The Commission's investigation determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female."
Plaintiff timely filed this action within 90 days of issuance of her right to sue letter from the HCRC issued on March 17, 2010.
The County retaliated against Plaintiff by: 1) having the Office of the County Attorney direct an incomplete and inadequate investigation into Plaintiff's complaint of sexual harassment; 2) the Kauai Police Department's failure to investigate Plaintiff's complaint that someone hacked into Plaintiffs financial accounts and misappropriated her image and personal accounts; and 3) failing to timely promote Plaintiff from Trainee to Investigator I despite Plaintiff receiving "More Than Satisfactory" ratings from Shimatsu.
Tomorrow, in granting the county attorney’s request for more money to fight rather than settle the two suits, the council will no doubt be adding another misdeed to the list.
----------
We’re taking tomorrow off and possibly taking a long weekend although we may get to post something Friday. If not we’ll be back Monday.
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