The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to pay an Oxford woman $320,000 to settle a sexual harassment case involving a former supervisor at John Umstead Hospital with a prior history of mistreating female workers, according to the woman's lawyer.
Dorothy Hawley won the settlement last month, Raleigh lawyer Jack Nichols said in a news release. Her former supervisor, James Hobgood, had been convicted of assaulting she and another female employee in October 2000. Hawley had also accused him of on-going sexual harassment, Dan Kane reports.
Hawley filed suit against Hobgood and the state five years ago, and evidence showed that Hobgood had been fired from another state facility 22 years earlier. In that case, Hobgood had been disciplined for sexual harassment after complaints from female staff. His personnel file noted that he was "not eligible for re-employment with the state," Nichols said.
"Our firm felt that Dorothy Hawley was entitled to a remedy for her mistreatment by James Hobgood and John Umstead Hospital," Nichols said. "Public employers are now on notice that they are subject to such claims in the same way that private employers can be held liable. For John Umstead, the cost of not checking on an employee's prior behavior was a six-figure damages award."
Hawley had won $433,000 in damages from the N.C. Industrial Commission, but the state appealed the award. Mediation resulted in the $320,000 settlement.
Nichols said the lawsuit represents the first time someone had sued the state under a claim of negligent hiring, negligent retention and negligent supervision of an employee.
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