United Healthcare of Florida to Pay $1.8 Million for Same-Sex Harassment and Retaliation

EEOC Settles Suit Charging Male Former Regional Vice President With Victimizing Male Former Senior Accounts ExecutiveMIAMI – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced that United HealthCare of Florida, Inc. will pay $1.8 million to settle a same-sex harassment and retaliation lawsuit charging that the male former regional vice president of key accounts subjected a male former top senior account executive to repeated verbal sexual harassment in Sunrise, Fla.According to the EEOC’s lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division (Case No. 06-61483-CIV-MOORE/GARBER), after the high ranking senior account executive complained several times to upper management, United HealthCare retaliated against him by subjecting him to discipline and denying him stock options and commissions. The account executive even complained to the former and current chief executive officers of the employer’s parent company (United HealthGroup, Inc.) who did not take remedial action to correct the unlawful discrimination. The top executive could no longer tolerate the retaliatory conduct, so he quit, the EEOC said.The three-year consent decree settling the suit requires United HealthCare of Florida to pay $1.8 million to the former employee in back pay, damages, and his private attorneys’ fees and costs. United HealthCare must also distribute a new anti-harassment policy to all of its employees in Florida; train all its employees (including managers) at the Sunrise facility on federal employment dis­crimination laws including sexual harassment and retaliation; post a notice of resolution of the lawsuit; and report to EEOC twice annually about any harassment or retaliation complaints based on harassment, and the actions taken by United HealthCare to resolve such complaints.For the rest of this article please visit www.EEOC.gov.