CHARLESTON – A Par Mar convenience store employee blames her supervisor for not taking action when a Pepsi delivery person sexually harassed her.
Connie Bragg filed her complaint April 25 in Kanawha Circuit Court against Par Mar Oil Company and Walter “Abe” Lovett.
According to the complaint, Bragg started working at a Par Mar in Charleston in October 2018. In summer 2020, she was transferred to a store on Charleston’s West Side. She was the lead cashier and supervised by Lovett. Part of her duties were stocking store shelves with merchandise delivered to the store.
She says the company didn’t provide her with sexual harassment training and failed to take appropriate preventative steps to protect employees from sexual harassment from employees, vendors and customers. She says Par Mar also failed to provide sufficient sexual harassment training to store managers and district managers.
In the fall of 2020, Bragg says a Pepsi delivery driver named Matt began making rude, inappropriate and unwelcome comments to her about her body almost every time he delivered merchandise. She says he almost always talked about her breasts and made sexually charged comments such as he “would like to bend her over” and asked if her panties matched her shirt.
She says Matt would hug her without her consent and commented how her breasts felt “good up against him.”
Bragg says she reported Matt’s conduct to Lovett in the hope he would stop the harassment, but she says Lovett merely laughed off the complaints and continued to schedule her to work when Matt delivered Pepsi.
She also says Matt sometimes would make sexual comments about her to Lovett, who would then relay to Bragg.
“After almost two years of frequent sexual harassment by Mr. Doe and defendants Lovett and Par Mar condoning the conduct and failing to protect Ms. Bragg, she had no real choice but to quit her job,” the complaint states, adding she quit May 9, 2022.
Bragg accuses the defendants of violating the West Virginia Human Rights Act by creating, allowing, aiding and abetting a hostile work environment with sexual harassment as well as retaliation and constructive discharge.
She says she has suffered past and future lost wages and benefits as well as loss of dignity, embarrassment, humiliation, aggravation and emotional distress. She seeks compensatory damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
Bragg is being represented by Rodney A. Smith and M. Alex Urban of Rod Smith Law in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Kenneth Ballard.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 23-C-358