Dive Brief:
- United Airlines allegedly created a hostile work environment by allowing a supervisor to sexually harass his subordinate and “is vicariously liable for the abusive acts of its employee,” according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado (Denson v. United Airlines).
- A flight attendant alleged that a pilot “was permitted to sexually harass Plaintiff and to disclose intimate, private, depictions and/or images of Plaintiff through channels in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce” without her consent in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Colorado civil revenge pornography statute, per court documents.
- The lawsuit also alleged that the airline “has known for years that its employees, agents, volunteers, captains, and/or pilots were using their position within United Airlines to sexually harass and exploit its employees” and that the plaintiff is only one of the victims “of United Airlines’ wrongful conduct.” United Airlines declined to comment.
Dive Insight:
The lawsuit follows others alleging sexual harassment by United Airlines supervisors.
For instance, in 2019, the airline agreed to pay $321,000 to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging a pilot posted sexually explicit images of a flight attendant to websites for years without her permission.
EEOC said United Airlines failed to correct the pilot’s behavior, despite the flight attendant notifying the company of the behavior on multiple occasions. The airline also let the pilot retire with benefits, even though he faced criminal charges under federal internet stalking laws, the agency said.
As part of the settlement, United Airlines agreed to revise its sexual harassment policy to prohibit employees from engaging in online harassment.
In the new case, the flight attendant said that when she began her employment with the company in 2015 she was not required to undergo any training on “the prevention, reporting, and handling of sexual harassment or misconduct.” A few months after she started working for the company, she did take a general training on misconduct between employees, “but this training only loosely mentioned sexual harassment, and did not make any mention of online sexual harassment or the use/distribution of intimate images,” according to court documents.
United Airlines also was named to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s 2019 Dirty Dozen List, “which names 12 mainstream contributors to sexual exploitation,” according to the center. The listing alleged that “United Airlines aircrews have apparently received ineffective training due to consistent failures in addressing sexually harassing actions, speech, or pornography-use.”
The plaintiff in the latest case said she brought “this action to recover for the emotional and psychological injuries she endured because of the actions and/or inactions of Defendant United Airlines and to make sure that no one else is forced to suffer the sexual harassment, exploitation, degradation, and discrimination that she felt and continues to feel to this day.”
The pilot she alleged sexually harassed her in October 2024 separately pleaded guilty to 10 felonies, including eight counts of distribution of pornography by an adult, one count of sexual extortion and one count of stalking, and was sentenced to up to five years in prison.