UPPER DEERFIELD TWP. — On Jan. 7, 2010, five months after she said she walked in on her manager engaging in a sex act with a fellow employee, 20-year employee Mary Lynn Clark was fired from her job at the Acme Supermarket in Carll's Corner.
Clark, of Elmer, is suing Acme Markets Inc., which is owned by multi-billion dollar company Supervalu, Inc., and three Acme employees because Clark believes she was fired in retaliation for reporting the incident. Ranked number 75 on the 2012 Fortune 500 list, Supervalu is an American retailing company that operates more than 2,500 food and drug stores nationwide.
According to Clark, on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2009, she and Acme night manager Amy Simpson were looking for their manager, Carl Mason, who had disappeared from the floor.
On their way to retrieve some aprons, Clark and Simpson entered the electrical room and found a female deli clerk performing a sexual act on Mason.
According to Clark’s testimony, Mason quickly buckled his pants and rushed out of the electrical room area.
Immediately thereafter, Clark alleges she was confronted by Mason and subjected to harassment.
Clark and Simpson contacted the Human Resources department at Acme and filed a report.
On Monday, Aug. 31, Sloan Nichols and Matt Juhring, of human resources, interviewed Clark and took her statement. Despite Clark's request for a person-to-person interview, Nichols would only permit Clark to give a statement via phone interview, according to Clark's testimony.
Nichols and Juhring had allegedly already taken statements from Mason and the deli clerk before interviewing Clark.
According to Clark, no action was taken.
Clark claims she was ridiculed and targeted for adverse job actions and subjected to a hostile work environment as a result of her objections to and protests against her supervisor’s alleged sexual acts.
Clark's attorney, Tom Seeley, of Bridgeton, says in the complaint that Acme Markets, Inc. and its employees not only failed to take action to prevent a hostile work environment, but the defendants willfully failed to undertake any meaningful remedial action with respect to Clark's claim, a violation of the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, as well as Clark's protection from discriminatory firing, a violation of New Jersey's anti-discrimination law.
“My client was forced to work in a hostile environment,” Seeley said. “I feel bad that she had to suffer from that, psychologically and emotionally. It is a real shame that this had to occur and it could have been prevented.”
In May 2012, Seeley settled a sexual harassment case filed in April 2010 involving a cocktail waitress at Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic City. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
In Clark’s claim that Acme failed to take steps to remediate an unfair and hostile work environment and then fired her for reporting the sexual encounter she witnessed, she asks punitive damages to cover lawyer fees and psychological counseling fees, claiming she sustained mental trauma from the incident. She is also demanding actual damages of fees for lost wages, as she has remained unemployed since being terminated from Acme.
Mason is no longer employed by the Acme store located in Upper Deerfield Township.
The case remains in the pre-trial discovery phase, with evidence still under review.
A statement from Acme’s external communications manager at Supervalu Inc. said Acme terminated the plaintiff’s employment due to her admitted violation of company policy. However, Acme did not comment further regarding Clark’s alleged policy violation.
