The Vermont Attorney General’s office has announced settlement in a joint state and federal job discrimination lawsuit.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Coughlin, Inc., a McDonald’s restaurant franchisee, in March 2021 for failing to protect workers at its Randolph, Vermont location from a manager that sexually harassed, hit, grabbed, and made offensive and degrading comments towards employees.
The attorney general’s office joined the suit because the company failed in 2007 to comply with state sexual harassment laws at a different McDonald’s.
Coughlin Inc. must pay $1.2 million in compensation to victims, $125,000 in civil penalties and damages to the state and $275,000 to the estate of one of the victims who died during the lawsuit.