Lowe’s Company Inc. is being sued for a “troubling pattern” of male-on-male sexual harassment at its Vacaville store, a San Francisco attorney said Wednesday after filing the civil complaint in Solano County Superior Court.

In a press statement and during a brief interview, Kelly Armstrong said she filed the lawsuit on behalf of a John Doe, withholding his identity because of the nature of the complaint, which alleges several “causes of action” against Lowe’s Home Centers and a former employee at the 1751 E. Monte Vista Ave. store, identified as Mark Fox.

“Male-on-male sexual harassment is common in the United States, but employers routinely fail to take complaints seriously when the victim is a man,” said Armstrong. “In an odd twist, men who suffer sexual harassment in the workplace lag behind women who have experienced tangible progress during the #MeToo era.

“My client repeatedly reported some of the most egregious harassment one can imagine to management — harassment that is difficult to imagine being ignored had the victim been female — but his pleas were shrugged off, met with retaliation, and even physical threats.”

n a copy of the 17-page complaint obtained by The Reporter, the suit, filed Tuesday and acknowledged by the court, alleges hostile work environment, retaliation and failure to prevent harassment in violation of California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. Additional claims include wrongful termination, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

In the suit Armstrong cited Lowe’s Companies Inc., the home-improvement retailer based in Mooresville, N.C., Lowe’s Homes Centers and Fox as defendants and seeks a jury trial and punitive damages, but she did not specify how much during the interview.

A spokesperson at Lowe’s main offices twice did not return Reporter requests for comment regarding the allegations.

According to Armstrong, store managers and corporate managers shrugged off “myriad complaints” detailing a pervasive culture of sexual harassment at the Vacaville store.

In the lawsuit, she said employees spread rumors that Doe had sex with multiple employees, gave a sexually transmitted disease to multiple employees, dated an employee and had a threesome with her and her boyfriend, as well as “hooked up sexually” with another female employee.

“The worst harassment, however, came from employee Mark Fox,” she asserted in the written statement, which, like the formal complaint, detailed explicit actions and statements of a sexual nature in the workplace from March 2019 to mid-2020.

Armstrong noted that Fox, an assistant store manager at the time, made inappropriate comments about having sex with a man and told Doe that, since Fox was tall, the size difference between him and another man would be “fun” and that he would make another man “spin like a top” on his penis.

As she did in the formal complaint, she claimed Fox later described his genitalia in detail to Doe, asked him whether he wanted to have sex with a man, requested he travel with him to Las Vegas, and offered to perform “choke and stroke” on Doe, a reference to a sexual act involving asphyxiation.

Fox also asked her client, she said, whether he had ever seen a pink starfish. Doe said no, and Fox asked if he wanted to, proceeding to slap his buttocks to indicate he was the “pink starfish.”

Doe repeatedly told Fox that “the behavior and comments were inappropriate and that they made him feel uncomfortable,” Armstrong said, adding that her client “made multiple complaints to management, but the harassment continued unabated by Lowe’s.”

In one instance, she cited in the complaint, her client was in the restroom when he received a text from Fox, who was working the same shift. The text included a photo of Doe’s feet under the bathroom stall. When Doe left the bathroom and told Fox that what he did was unacceptable, “Fox told him to keep his mouth shut or he would ‘f— up’ ” her client.

Fox, however, continued to photograph Doe in the restroom and share the photos with colleagues, according to Armstrong. Another photo showed Doe standing up with his legs spread and pants down in the restroom while using the facilities where his buttocks, scrotum and penis were showing. Another was taken from underneath a bathroom stall when Doe was sitting on the toilet and showed the sides of his buttocks and thighs as his pants were down. Doe complained, including to Vacaville store manager Dave Berlin, but Lowe’s failed to take any action, the complaint indicated.

The incidents affected Doe so much that he could no longer use a public restroom without fear of being photographed and exposed to others. When he complained to Berlin, Doe was told “to drop the issue,” the complaint’s wording showed. Berlin also warned that he could fire Doe any time he wanted to.

Despite her client’s efforts to get the attention of store management, Fox’s workplace behavior continued, noted Armstrong. At a potluck, Fox asked Doe if he wanted to try his “big kielbasa” while motioning toward his groin. Back at the store Fox explained the sex act of “edging” to Doe that he wanted to try it on him, a reference to sexual stimulation to the point just before orgasm before stopping or slowing down. Doe complained again to Berlin, who, according to Armstrong, again took no action, she added.

Unsatisfied with Berlin’s response, Doe lodged a complaint with Lowe’s Associate Care Center through an online portal.

Fox, said Armstrong, later approached Doe in the store and told him, “You better drop your complaint or I’m going to f— you up.” The threat was overheard by an unidentified department manager who neither asked Doe about the threat nor reprimanded Fox, she added in the statement.

Distraught, Doe took leave from work. When he returned, in what would be his final day, he was again “physically threatened by Fox to drop the complaint” and requested to work at a different Lowe’s location. Doe’s request was denied, said Armstrong.

She said her client told her that every day he drove to work he lived “in fear of the humiliation I would suffer once I arrived.”

Lowe’s managers, he said, “did nothing other than threaten me, call me names, retaliate, and force me from my job. I was trapped between a paycheck I needed to survive during the pandemic and a workplace that traumatized me every day.”

In a text message to The Reporter, Armstrong wrote, “Because the sexual harassment was so pervasive, we are encouraging all other victims and witnesses to come forward so that Lowe’s can be held fully accountable.”

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Under California law, the offensive conduct need not be motivated by sexual desire, but may be based upon an employee’s actual or perceived sex or gender identity, actual or perceived sexual orientation, and/or pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. This definition includes many forms of offensive behavior and includes gender-based harassment of a person of the same sex as the harasser and actions that subject co-workers to a hostile work environment.

If harassment led to your firing or forced you to leave your job, you may be able to collect compensation for your missed time from work. The same applies if an employer retaliated in the form of reduced hours, cut pay, or unpaid suspension. Sexual harassers and employers may also face liability for a harassment victim’s psychological distress and fear experienced in the workplace.

Victims of sexual harassment in California need legal counsel they can rely upon to handle their DFEH and EEOC claims as well as their civil actions against the responsible parties.

Contact Potter Handy, LLP if you have been the victim of sexual harassment in the workplace. Our attorneys will aggressively fight for your interests at every step.

Call us at (858) 365-9722 or contact us online for a free consultation and comprehensive case evaluation. https://potterhandyemployment.com/contact/