Sammamish Chipotle Manager Sexually Assaults Teen Worker: Lawsuit

SAMMAMISH, WA — A 17-year-old Chipotle worker in Sammamish was sexually harassed and assaulted by an adult service manager, according to a lawsuit filed in Seattle that accused the fast-food giant of subjecting young female workers to "egregious and ongoing" sexual harassment.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Chipotle on Wednesday. Patch has reached out to Chipotle for comment and will update when we hear back.

Beginning in October 2019, a 29-year-old Sammamish service manager sexually harassed a 17-year-old female worker, according to the lawsuit. The manager told the teen he "liked the way her ass moved," suggested she sit on his lap, and asked her for a lap dance when she asked for a work break, the lawsuit said. The harassment then escalated, with the manager touching and kissing the teen and, ultimately, sexually assaulting her one night as they closed the store, the lawsuit said.

That same month, a female service manager notified the general manager of the male service manager's pursuit of an inappropriate relationship with the teen employee.

"Despite this warning, the General Manager failed to conduct a reasonable investigation," the lawsuit said.

Instead, the general manager told the teen she could be fired for having an inappropriate relationship with the service manager, and that other females had asked not to be scheduled to work with him because he made them uncomfortable, according to the lawsuit. But the general manager continued to schedule the two together, did not follow up with the teen to ensure her safety and did not look into why other female workers didn't want to work with that service manager, the employment commission said.

"After the General Manager failed to take prompt and effective action to stop the male Sammamish service manager's harassment of the 17-year old female employee, he escalated his harassment of her in November 2019, including sexually assaulting her again while they were closing the store, and after that explicitly describing to her what he wanted to do to her sexually," the lawsuit said.

Also in November 2019, the service manager sexually harassed a second underage female worker, the employment commission said. This time, he stared at her, commented on her appearance and suggested he wanted to have sex with her, the commission said. The same female employee said she heard the service manager behave inappropriately towards other female workers as well, including touching their bodies, the commission said.

In January 2020, the same service manager sexually harassed a third worker, the lawsuit said, commenting about his butt and the bodies of other workers. The manager cornered him in the walk-in freezer, refused to let him leave, and the worker pushed past him to exit, the suit said.

The lawsuit outlines other incidents in February 2020 and May 2020 when it said workers were subjected to unwelcome sexual comments and harassment, including one instance in which the service manager touched a worker on the behind later and trapped the same worker in a walk-freezer.

In a separate instance, a 24-year-old crew member who was reassigned to the Sammamish store from an Issaquah store made crude, sexually charged comments to a female worker. This included the crew member telling her that her wrist pain was due to her performing sex acts on herself and that he said, "he had the same problem," the lawsuit said.

"Defendants knew of the male Sammamish store manager’s and male Issaquah crew member's offensive and unwelcome sexual conduct towards [a female worker] and similarly aggrieved female employees and failed to take prompt or appropriate corrective action to prevent or remedy the hostile work environment they created," the lawsuit alleged.

In June 2020, the teen and another female worker complained to the Sammamish general manager about being harassed by the crew member from Issaquah. Despite being told the general manager would talk to the crew member, Chipotle did not act "promptly," the lawsuit said, and he continued working with the female workers.

At one point, he "angrily and aggressively confronted them" about the complaint, "getting close and touching them on their backs, sides and brushing up against" one of the workers.

In June 2020, the worker notified the general manager at the Issaquah location about the transferred crew member's aggressive behavior and harassment. Even then, the lawsuit said the crew member was allowed to continue working. This time he was assigned to work at Chipotle's South Center location pending the outcome of an investigation.

But by then, multiple female workers feared for their safety and felt their working conditions were so "intolerable they felt forced to resign," the lawsuit said.

The EEOC said it filed its lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle after trying to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its voluntary conciliation process. The commission seeks lost wages and monetary compensation for emotional distress, as well as punitive damages and injunctive relief to ensure Chipotle workers are protected from sexual harassment in the future.

“This case involves workers in their teens and early 20s. These are their first impressions they will they form about the workplace, and it is devastating when an employer permits sexual harassment to continue despite repeated complaints,” Nancy Sienko, director for the commission's San Francisco District, which includes Washington state, said in a statement.

She added: “We want to send a clear and opposing message: every worker has a right to a workplace free from sexual harassment, and the EEOC will hold employers accountable.”

Editor's note: A previous version of this report used the wrong pronouns to describe one of the workers. The article has been updated to indicate the worker prefers he/him pronouns. Patch regrets the error.