Penske gets defense verdict in former clerk’s sexual harassment suit

April 7, 2006

By CYNTHIA DI PASQUALE,

Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer



Penske Truck Leasing Co. and nine of its employees were cleared of liability in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt last week in a suit brought by a former clerk who claimed she was forced out of the company for reporting sexual harassment.

The company maintained that Renee Newsome’s claims were a tactic to draw attention away from her excessive absences.

“We felt like she distorted reality or made up events because [Penske] started cracking down on her attendance,” said Penske’s attorney, Michael J. Carlson. He and James A. Rothschild, both of Anderson, Coe & King in Baltimore, worked together on the case.

Newsome alleged she was subjected to vulgar comments and unwanted touching from the time she started working at the company’s Capitol Heights’ facility in February 2000 until she quit in June 2002. When she complained to supervisors, she alleged, the company began strictly enforcing its attendance policy — and the harassment got worse, forcing her to resign, she claimed.

Carlson, however, said Newsome “had bad attendance from the beginning and it became progressively worse until the time she quit.”

The company warned her it would be enforcing its policies in August 2001, after which she received several written notices including a suspension, he said this week.

Regardless, she missed the equivalent of a month at work in the first few months of 2002.

Claiming harassment was Newsome’s way of either establishing a basis for future litigation or heading off termination, Penske argued.

Penske presented evidence that it had a sexual harassment policy and had promptly investigated Newsome’s complaints. The company’s internal investigation turned up no wrongdoing, Carlson said.

‘Vindicated’

The jury deliberated for a little more than a day after hearing from 23 witnesses over eight days, Carlson said. It found Penske and each of the employees named in the suit not guilty of harassment, retaliation or constructive discharge.

“This was an important victory for Penske,” Carlson said. “The felt like they were vindicated because … people’s names were tarnished. The company looks after its employees and it felt the charges were untrue.”

Newsome filed her complaint in Prince George’s County Circuit Court in March 2004, but Penske had it removed to federal court. She had asked the court for $300,000 in relief.

Her attorney, Alan Lescht, had no comment yesterday.