As South Park might say, “It’s Sexual Harassment… Panda.”
A former employee at the Santa Clarita, California Panda Express has sued the company alleging sexual battery, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after a “self-improvement seminar” went horribly wrong. And not just because she accidentally ate some of that orange chicken glop they pass off as food.
The plaintiff alleges that the “area coach of operation” Matthiu Simuda “informed Plaintiff that in order to be considered for promotion, she needed to complete a ‘self-improvement seminar run by Alive Seminars.” At the time, the plaintiff was making $11.35 per hour, but she dutifully borrowed hundreds of dollars for what she believed was an essential investment in her career.
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Judging by the company’s website, these seminars appear to consist of being bored to death in a fluorescent flooded classroom. But according to the complaint, it was actually worse than that.
The seminar was held in a warehouse kitted out for an “off the-books interrogation of terrorist suspects,” with the windows and doors covered in black cloth, cell phones taken from participants, and no clock.
At the start, the attendees were told to sit down and not talk, and were left in eerie isolation for a full hour before a man stormed in, yelling in Spanish and berating the attendees for sitting there and doing nothing when that is exactly what they had been instructed to do. The man, an Alive Seminars employee, loudly proclaimed that the attendees are “nothing” and “don’t matter,” rounding on some people to berate them individually, spittle flying.
The next day attendees were instructed to “pretend that they are on a sinking ship and that only four of them get to live. Each participant in turn was then informed by their peers whether they would live or die. Meanwhile, seminar staff continued to yell abuse to the effect that nobody will care if Plaintiff, or the other participants, live or die because they do not stand out sufficiently.”
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On the third day, the participants were instructed to strip down to their underwear and reveal their vulnerabilities to the group.
The exercise culminated when Plaintiff, along with other participants, had to take turns standing up to yell about their inner struggles until everyone else in the group “believed” them. The last male participant had some difficulty “convincing” the others and as a result, broke down in tears. Plaintiff was told to stand up and go to the middle of the room with the male participant, where they were forced to “hug it out” wearing nothing but their underwear. Plaintiff was humiliated but did as she was told.
After which the lights were dimmed and the still unclothed attendees were “instructed to stand up and close their eyes, pretending that a light from above would come down and take all the ‘negative energy’ out of them” while “one of the Alive Seminars staff had a cell phone with the light on, recording Plaintiff in her state of undress.”
The plaintiff did not stick around to find out whatever sadistic shit went down on day four, but claims that the harassment she suffered during the first three days left her no alternative but to resign from her job at Panda Express. She alleges that this amounts to a constructive discharge and holds the company vicariously liable for abuse at the seminar, since Panda Express made attendance mandatory for advancement and is thus in a “principal-agent” relationship with Alive Seminars, also a named defendant in the suit.
Panda Express pushed its employees in the Los Angeles region to complete Alive Seminars training. In many cases, it was a prerequisite to promotion. Panda Express even paid some of its employees to attend (while others, like Plaintiff, were forced to spend several hundred dollars out-of-pocket). At the seminar, Panda Express employees were required to provide their employee ID numbers so that the seminar fee could be debited directly from their Panda Express employee accounts, if they were one of the employees for whom Panda Express was paying. All employees received seminar materials featuring the Panda Express logo. Alive Seminars served – in essence – as an extension of Panda Express’ own Human Resources department.
Wow, that sounds exactly like a company whose founders got rich slinging day-Glo heart attack plates while underpaying employees and preaching Dale Carnegie management woo. Orange chicken, anyone?
Complaint [via WaPo]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.