A former Los Angeles International Airport maintenance worker sued the city Thursday, alleging those in charge did not do enough or act promptly when she complained of sexual harassment by a supervisor and that the department manager made up grounds to fire her in 2023.
Myesha Brown also contends in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that no one from a special number set up to report workplace harassment ever called her back. Brown’s causes of action include sexual battery and harassment in addition to retaliation and failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
Brown seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. A representative for the City Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Brown was hired in July 2023 as a vocational worker in the LAX Maintenance Services Division. She was moved two weeks later to terminal 3 and told to sign paperwork with the supervisor there, the suit states.
Not long afterward, the terminal 3 supervisor, after telling Brown, ” l was wondering if you got lost,” twice hugged the plaintiff without her permission and despite her objections, according to the suit.
The suit further alleges the boss pushed Brown toward his face and pointed to himself below the waist.
A co-worker later told Brown that the supervisor had done the same thing to other women and that the plaintiff’s encounter with him was “not his first rodeo,” according to the suit.
A second fellow employee advised Brown, “He likes to do creepy stuff to women,” the suit alleges.
Although she complained about what happened to her with the supervisor, she was still told to go to terminal 3 a minimum of three times weekly despite her requests for a transfer, the suit states.
Brown called a special hotline number to report workplace harassment, but no one ever called her back, the suit further alleges. She then took her complaint to LAX police, but yet another supervisor retaliated for her taking time off to file the report by deeming her as having been absent without leave and he docked her pay, the suit states.
Brown was ultimately transferred from terminal 3 in August 2023 with the help of her union, but she was fired in December of that year by the maintenance manager under the pretext of a “failure to meet department standards,” the suit states.
Brown has suffered humiliation and depression as well as lost work and chances for promotion because of losing her job, the suit states.