Andreatta: Jury awards $425,000 in Penfield Subway sexual harassment case

David Andreatta | Democrat and Chronicle

Show Caption Hide Caption Jury awards Subway worker $425,000 A jury awarded Sherielee Figueroa $425,000 after she was fired from her job shortly after reporting the sexual harassment going on at her job.

Justice prevailed in a federal courtroom in Rochester recently when a jury awarded $425,000 to a woman who was fired from her job managing a Subway restaurant in Penfield after complaining about relentless sexual harassment by her supervisor.

“I cried,” the plaintiff, Sherielee Figueroa, said of hearing the verdict. “I cried so hard and not because I wanted the money. It was more like I found justice. It made me feel complete.”

The award was bolstered by punitive damages of $275,000, an amount that, in this case, exceeds the federal statutory cap for such damages and that her lawyer said sends a message in the #MeToo era.

“Employers should know that when you do this to someone, it sends shockwaves of damage all over, and I think the jury understood that,” said her lawyer, Anthony LaDuca.

Life was never easy for Figueroa. She moved around as a kid between New York City and Puerto Rico, was pregnant at 17 and made ends meet working in fast food restaurants.

But no stage of her life was harder, she said, than the six months she endured working under a new male supervisor at the Subway on Penfield Road in 2014.

He called Figueroa a “b----,” speculated she “got lucky last night,” made sexually explicit references when handling the “slippery” neck of a salad dressing bottle and asked to see her breasts, according to the complaint and interviews with Figueroa and her lawyer.

Figueroa’s position managing a Subway had been a dream, the culmination of a long climb up the fast food industry ladder with rungs at Dunkin' Donuts and KFC.

When she landed the job the previous year, she was 25 and had three children, including an infant. She and her husband were renting a house in Rochester, saving to buy their own. She was paid an hourly wage that she could stretch to about $3,000 a month working upward of 50 hours a week.

Her supervisor oversaw eight Subway restaurants in greater Rochester and routinely visited her store on Wednesdays.

“My heart would literally feel like it was going to pop out of my chest,” she said of when he came around. “It was bad.”

When Figueroa finally complained to her supervisor’s boss, the district manager, in August 2014, little was done to assuage the situation, according to the complaint.

No internal investigation was launched and no witnesses were interviewed. There wasn’t even a tacit recirculation of Subway’s sexual harassment policy.

Instead, the district manager invited Figueroa and her tormenter to a meeting at which he denied harassing her. The district manager then threw up her hands and suggested they “hug it out,” according to the complaint.

“I told him I didn’t want a hug,” Figueroa said.

More: Read Sherielee Figueroa's federal court complaint

A few weeks after the meeting, Figueroa filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights. The next day, Figueroa arrived at work to find her personal belongings boxed up. She had been fired.

From there, her life fell into a tailspin. She had a panic attack. She fell behind on her bills. She and her family of five moved in with her parents, who were already housing four other people, including an ailing grandmother, in their Rochester apartment.

Figueroa was the sole breadwinner for her family. Her husband stayed at home with the children. She was prescribed medication for anxiety and depression. When she filed for unemployment benefits, the company contested her claim. She eventually won.

“They did so much damage,” Figueroa said. “I lost my house. I was on medication. As a mom, I felt like I let my kids down.”

The Division of Human Rights found “probable cause” for her sexual harassment complaint and another complaint she subsequently filed claiming retaliation, setting the stage for settlement talks.

When an agreement couldn’t be reached, Figueroa sued in federal court. Her supervisor, his boss, and the Texas-based limited liability company that owns the Subway franchise and others, KK Sub II LLC, were named defendants.

The trial played out over a week earlier this month that Figueroa described as “the worst week of my life.” “They degraded me as a person,” she said of the defense and witnesses who took the stand. “They put me through the floor.”

Among the tactics used by the defense, aside from denying the harassment and retaliation claims, was portraying Figueroa as a confident sexpot who not only invited advances from men but was unfazed by her interactions at Subway.

At one point, the defense presented the jury with a photo of Figueroa she had posted to Facebook. The image showed her wearing makeup, glaring into the camera and wearing a revealing top.

The gambit was classic victim blaming and it backfired.

“It didn’t relate to anything about the case,” juror Mary Olson said. “In my opinion, it was only introduced to make her look bad. I think most of the other jurors agreed with that.”

Perhaps sensing their misstep, the defense offered Figueroa $90,000 to go away prior to closing arguments. It was gut-check time. That was more money than Figueroa had ever seen in her life. She declined.

“If I would’ve taken the offer they gave me it was like letting them win and I didn’t want them to win,” Figueroa said. “I wanted them to know what they did. I wanted the jury to let them know you guys did wrong and this is justice.”

The jury, made up of four women and four men, found unanimously for Figueroa.

“Years ago, this probably would’ve been just laughed off, but hopefully now people are realizing you can’t treat people like that,” Olson said. “With the punitive damages, we really thought the company needed to get sent a message that they had better implement some better procedures for dealing with sexual harassment cases.”

Federal law limits punitive damages for companies with between 200 and 500 employees, like KK Sub II LLC, to $200,000. But the company will still likely be liable for Figueroa’s attorney’s fees, which will likely bring its payout to over $500,000. The company can appeal.

The New York Times in March explored whether workplaces were responding to #MeToo, and asked Subway and other low-wage employers if they had taken steps in recent months to prevent harassment. Subway reportedly said it already had the right procedures in place.

Figueroa, now 30, eventually righted herself after her Subway experience.

In 2015, she began managing a Dunkin' Donuts in East Rochester and subsequently bought a house in Rochester. She said she hopes to be promoted to a director of operations one day and use the jury award to pay off her mortgage and establish college funds for her children.

Her former Subway supervisor lost his job.

When the verdict was read, Figueroa broke down and hugged her lawyer. Then she composed herself, walked out of the courthouse, got in her car and drove to Dunkin Donuts. She was scheduled to work.

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.