A woman has settled her lawsuit against Clay Lacy Aviation Inc. in which she alleged she was forced to resign from her managerial role with the company in 2021 after suffering a backlash for complaining about being sexually harassed by her supervisor.
The plaintiff is identified only as Jane Doe in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit. On Thursday, her attorney filed court papers with Judge Teresa A. Beaudet stating that the case was resolved, but no terms were divulged. The judge had previously denied the company’s motion to compel arbitration of Doe’s claims.
CLA was founded in 1968 and is known for its private jet charter services. In their previous court papers, CLA attorneys denied Doe’s allegations and cited multiple defenses, including that her claims were barred by the statute of limitation and belonged in the workers’ compensation arena.
According to her suit, Doe was hired at age 22 as part of CLA’s flight department in Van Nuys and became a cabin server in April 2015. In order to preserve her employment when the pandemic struck, she took on various roles and responsibilities as well as a decrease in salary in May 2020, the suit stated.
Doe’s supervisor was the vice president of fixed base operations for the Van Nuys and John Wayne airports. He offered her a lead position in CLA’s Santa Ana operations, which required her to accept even less money, and she took the job since it could lead to a management position, the suit stated.
When her supervisor subsequently asked her to meet with him about a promotion to a manager, instead of a formal setting he took her to a crowded restaurant and later to a bar, where he served her so much alcohol she was too intoxicated to drive, the suit brought in October 2021 stated.
“It was thereafter that (the supervisor) took advantage of plaintiff’s intoxication and sexually battered plaintiff without her consent,” according to the suit, which further stated that the possibility of a promotion for Doe was never brought up by her boss during the outing.
However, while driving Doe to one of her friend’s homes the next day, the supervisor told her she was getting the promotion, according to the suit.
Doe assumed her managerial role in March 2021, but her supervisor made “repeated overtures” that she resisted and reported, the suit stated. In retaliation, the boss took adverse actions against her, including changing her work hours, and told her she was “not cut out for the promotion,” the suit stated.
Unable to deal further with her workplace anxiety, Doe resigned in May 2021, her suit stated.