Court allows woman to sue boss accused of showing genitals
The case centers on the
Cote filed a lawsuit in 2014 claiming Dorn sexually harassed her and other female colleagues over seven years by exposing his genitals to some female employees and walking around the office with his pants unzipped and "gaping open" and trying to get the women to notice his erect penis in his pants.
Dorn and the company tried to convince the courts to dismiss the charges citing a 1965 Iowa law that says companies with fewer than four employees are exempt from the Iowa Civil Rights Act and family members can't be counted as employees. He said since the insurance business employed several family members they couldn't be counted as employees so the company fell beneath the four-employee standard and couldn't be held accountable for civil rights violations.
The
It's a sweeping change that means many small businesses including many family farms that are incorporated cannot avoid compliance with the Iowa Civil Rights Act just because it employs only a few family members.
The
"This court believes a reasonable jury could find that the repeated showing of an erection, covered or uncovered, to a female co-worker is the type of outrageous conduct for which a plaintiff may recover in tort," the court said.
The
Cote's attorney,
Dorn's attorney,
The court found that most states do not have family-member exceptions in their antidiscrimination statutes. It said the
"We found no case holding a corporation can have family-member employees excluded from state statutory numerosity thresholds," the court said.
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