$200,000 settlement is no surprise

Former Papillion Mayor James Blinn and the ex-employee who accused him of sexual harassment have sparked dinnertime debate at the home of Ray and Tonia Aranza, just as they've prompted countless kitchen table conversations in recent weeks.

Tonia Aranza, like many people — including Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning — can't believe that Racheal Cascio received $200,000 after she accused Blinn, her boss and reportedly her former boyfriend, of harassment.

But Ray Aranza, a lawyer who has specialized in workplace discrimination for the past quarter century, takes the opposite view. The settlement's size is not surprising at all to lawyers and insurance companies that deal in the often-misunderstood world of harassment claims, he says.

“It's really difficult for anybody … to say this was an unreasonable settlement,” Aranza says. “Here's what I know: No insurance pool out there is just going to give money away for no reason. In my experience, that simply doesn't happen.”

Aranza and three other sexual harassment experts interviewed say they have noticed, in the wake of the Blinn story, misconceptions about the settlement's size and how it was determined.

The definition of sexual harassment has expanded in recent years, moving beyond what many in the public still view as traditional, clear-cut harassment — “Sleep with me, and I'll give you a promotion,” for example.

Today harassment can stem from a consensual relationship gone sour, as the Blinn-Cascio relationship reportedly did.

It's potentially harassment if one employee sends a series of demeaning e-mails to another following a messy breakup.

It's potentially harassment if a boss starts taking work duties away from an employee he or she has recently broken up with.

“Telling dumb blonde jokes,” Aranza said. “That could be harassment.”

Thanks to a landmark California case, it's also potentially harassment if a boss favors an employee he or she is sleeping with over other employees, harming them in the process.

In that case, a state employee successfully argued that she was harmed financially and psychologically by her boss sleeping with, and giving preferential treatment to, another employee.

Papillion employees and officials have told The World Herald the Blinn-Cascio relationship adversely affected workplace morale. They said Blinn had a habit of reminding some staffers that he had the power to fire them and set their pay, but he showered Cascio with compliments, attention and perks.

“Favoritism cases” are “the next generation of sexual harassment,” said Mark Fahleson, a Lincoln attorney who serves as city attorney for Ashland and Waverly and is also chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party.

The evolving nature of sexual harassment — and the widespread belief that any boss-employee relationship makes a harassment claim infinitely more likely — has led many companies and governmental agencies to ban boss-employee relationships entirely.

Other companies and government agencies ask dating co-workers to sign “love contracts” that define the nature of their relationship as consensual and restate the company's harassment policies.

And most organizations have greatly beefed up training about harassment in recent years, trying to outline what's acceptable and what's unacceptable on the job, the experts said.

Despite all this, sexual harassment is still shockingly widespread, says a UNO researcher.

Shareen Bingham at UNO said her research and other studies make her believe that the vast majority of sexual harassment incidents are never reported. When they are, she said, the person who files the complaint is often viewed with suspicion by co-workers and upper management alike.

“The knee-jerk reaction is always that the accuser has fabricated her story,” Bingham said. “But in general, the research shows just the opposite. It shows that both men and women are slow to report (harassment) and often don't.”

When sexual harassment is alleged, both Aranza, who mostly represents employees, and Fahleson, who usually represents cities and companies, say a $200,000 settlement is less shocking than it may seem.

Bruning, Nebraska's attorney general, blasted the Papillion settlement after looking into the case, saying there was no credible evidence of any sexual harassment.

But when a defendant wins a sexual harassment suit, he or she is often entitled to back pay, forward pay that would have been earned if the person hadn't had to leave the job, pay for any mental and physical stress and a small amount for punitive damages, Aranza said.

Cities and companies also must take the cost of a trial into account, said Fahleson. He has seen cases where the ultimate settlement paid to a victim is only $20,000, but the total cost nears $200,000 because of attorneys' fees.

Both said insurance companies generally do thorough investigations, weigh all the potential risks and use educated guesswork to arrive at a settlement.

The expanding nature of sexual harassment claims makes it much more complicated to forecast what a jury will do and to determine a settlement, the lawyers said.

Without knowing all the facts of the case, it's impossible to determine whether Cascio's settlement was fair, Fahleson and Aranza said.

But they cautioned that the payout in harassment cases often is higher than the public realizes. They also argue that Cascio and her attorney could have easily introduced new and damaging details at a trial — details that could have cost the City of Papillion even more money and heartburn.

The settlement “is not out of the realm of possibility in a jury verdict for someone earning roughly the same salary as she was,” Fahleson said.

Contact the writer:

444-1064, matthew.hansen@owh.com