CHARLESTON – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has accused a Walmart store manager of sexual harassment and discrimination.
The complaint was filed September 19 in federal court against Wal-Mart Stores East LP. The complaint focuses on the allegations of one former unnamed female employee, but it notes it could be a class of similarly situated women.
According to the complaint, Walmart has engaged in unlawful employment practices at the Lewisburg store since at least January 2021. The EEOC says James Bowyer, who has been store manager there since at least 2010, has created a hostile work environment for female employees.
According to the complaint, the unnamed charging party in this case says Bowyer offered her a job at the store when she was at the store working for another company. When she was waiting for her interview with a team lead, she says Bowyer approached her and offered to become her “sugar daddy.”
After she was hired in January 2021, the woman says Bowyer subjected her to continuing, unwelcome and offensive harassment. Besides Bowyer’s repeated offers to be the woman’s “sugar daddy,” the complaint includes other instances:
X Bowyer repeatedly told her he wanted to see her breasts and offered her money to show them to him.
X Bowyer brought the woman into his office and demanded she show him her breasts as a condition of employment. She says she was “highly offended,” but did so to receive a shift change she previously was told she would receive.
X Bowyer repeatedly groped the woman’s breasts and, at least once, put his mouth on her breasts.
X Bowyer pressed his clothed genitals against the woman’s back and put his hands in her pants.
X Bowyer cornered the woman in his office, asked if she wanted to see his genitals and asked if she would put his genitals in her mouth. The complaint says Bowyer “pressured (her) into compliance with his demand that she perform oral sex on him.”
X Bowyer later offered the woman $200 to perform oral sex on him.
The woman says she reported Bowyer’s conduct to a manager at a neighboring Walmart location. That manager reported Bowyer to Wal-Mart Stores East, according to the complaint.
Shortly thereafter, Aaron Mulhern from Human Resources contacted the woman to discuss her complaint against Bowyer. She soon told Mulhern she had obtained legal counsel.
The complaint says other female employees had made complaints about Bowyer’s sexually harassing conduct.
The woman began an extended leave of absence from work on October 12, 2022. She provided a statement about Bowyer’s actions to the defendant, but the complaint says Walmart never interviewed her about it.
She filed her discrimination charge with the EEOC against Wal-Mart Stores East in January. Less than a week later, she was discharged from her employment.
The EEOC says Walmart fired her because of her opposition to Bowyer’s conduct, her initiation of proceedings under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act with the EEOC and because of her gender.
“The harassing conduct … was unwelcome, sex-motivated and both subjectively and objectively hostile or abusive,” the complaint states.
The EEOC accuses Wal-Mart Stores East of creating a hostile work environment, retaliatory discharge for engaging in a protected activity and because of sex.
It seeks a permanent injunction enjoining the defendant and workers from engaging in or failing to take prompt action against sex-based harassing conduct, a permanent injunction enjoining the defendants and workers from retaliation for those who report such incidents as well as an order for defendant to institute and use policies to provide equal employment opportunities free of sex-based harassment and discrimination and retaliation.
It also seeks an order providing for backpay for the woman with pre-judgment interest and other relief, compensation for past and future monetary losses resulting from the unlawful employment practices, compensation for emotional pain and suffering and similar non-monetary losses as well as punitive damages and court costs.
The EEOC is represented by Acting General Counsel, Gwendolyn Young Reams, Deputy General Counsel Christopher Lage, Acting Associate General Counsel Lisa Morelli, Regional Attorney Debra M. Lawrence, Assistant Regional Attorney Ronald L. Phillips, Trial Attorney Delaney E. Anderson and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason S. Bailey.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 5;23-cv-623