Worker: Lawsuit Met With Threats

Dockworker David Jones is on medical leave from his job at a Yellow Freight System terminal in Minnesota after being awarded more than $1.75 million in a sexual harassment lawsuit against the company.

Jones says he fears for his life after receiving a threatening telephone call.

On July 19, Dakota County District Judge Patrice Sutherland added $1.1 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the $650,000 awarded by a jury in May. The award is thought to be the largest in state history for a sexual harassment case.

Jones said the victory may have earned him more hostility from his co-workers at the freight facility.

The lawsuit alleged that co-workers at the terminal in Burnsville, Minn., repeatedly grabbed him by the buttocks and wrote obscene and threatening graffiti about him on bathroom walls. It also said that one worker simulated sodomizing Jones.

When Jones’s home address was posted on a bulletin board after the jury verdict, along with threats against his family, he felt such conditions made it unsafe for him to return to work, said his attorney, Barbara J. Felt with the law firm of Reinhardt & Anderson in St. Paul, Minn.

"It’s really hostile for me there right now," Jones said in a telephone interview from his home. "There have been death threats. They actually called my house a week ago and said, ‘You’ll pay.’"

Jones said he was not sure who made the call.

"All I know is it came out of Yellow Freight at 3:21 in the morning," said Jones, who has caller ID on his telephone.

For the full story, see the August 9 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.