Jurors begin deliberations in sexual harassment lawsuit

The jurors yesterday afternoon began deliberating on the sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a band singer who alleged that a then restaurant manager of Saipan Grand Hotel made sexual advances on her.

EEOC trial attorney Derek Li and attorney Steven Pixley, counsel for Saipan Grand Hotel’s owners Asia Pacific Hotels Inc. and Tan Holdings Inc., completed their closing arguments in the morning.

After U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona gave the jury instructions in the afternoon, the jurors began deliberating. The jurors did not reach a verdict and will resume their deliberations on Monday.

EEOC is demanding compensatory and punitive damages from defendants Asia Pacific and Tan Holdings. EEOC alleged that the defendants allowed the singer to be subjected to sexual harassment that was severe enough to create a hostile, abusive work environment.

In EEOC’s closing arguments, Li said this case is about responsibility and accountability.

Li said the defendants have refused to accept their responsibility and therefore should be held accountable for their actions.

The EEOC counsel said the singer is here because she is traumatized.

He said the federal court pursuant to a consent decree ordered the defendants to conduct training about sexual harassment for their employees.

In addition, Li said, the managers supposed to receive additional trainings so they know how to investigate sexual harassment incidents.

Li said to the defendants’ credit, there was evidence about training and anti-sexual harassment policies in 2006, but that the problem is that sexual harassment continued in the hotel.

The EEOC counsel said there is no evidence of acknowledgement forms in 2006 and 2007 that the employees and managers underwent training on sexual harassment.

“They decided not to follow the court’s order,” Li said.

Li said the singer was not interested to engage in a romantic relationship with then restaurant manager Tomas Alegre, a married man.

Li said when the singer was drunk and at her most vulnerable, Alegre took advantage of her.

The EEOC counsel said there were a lot of talks about Alegre and the singer’s relationship, but that it does not give Alegre permission to un-strap her bra and lower her panty.

Li said the defendants’ theory that the singer filed the complaint simply just she could stay on Saipan, does not make sense.

“Alegre knew that what he did was wrong. That’s why he left for the Philippines,” he said.

In the defendants’ closing arguments, Pixley asked what about EEOC’s responsibility.

Pixley said the case is not complicated, but the “abusive” EEOC makes the case complicated.

In citing the singer’s many inconsistent statements, Pixley kept on repeating Mark Twain’s famous quotation: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

Pixley said the singer is a performer and that she’s performing in court.

“In order to be a good performer, you have to tell the truth,” the lawyer pointed out.

Pixley said EEOC’s expert Julie B. Yanow is a hired gun out to confuse the jurors.

Pixley said EEOC wants the jurors to believe that the singer does not want to go to Saipan.

Showing an immigration document in which the singer signed stating she was an employee of a company from 2005 to the present, Pixley said the singer lied to immigration authorities in order to come to Saipan.

“If she lied to immigration authorities to come here, she will lie to get money from our company,” Pixley said.

The lawyer said EEOC’s own expert Yanow testified that the singer lied in her statements.

He stressed that the singer changed her story several times.

“I submit to you ladies and gentlemen from the jurors…there was a consensual relationship,” Pixley said.

Pixley showed a document that Tan Holdings’ legal department sent to EEOC on Jan. 2, 2007 regarding anti-sexual harassment policies and procedures.

Pixley said EEOC never responded.

“They did not say that our policies were deficient,” he pointed out.