Fresh Venture Foods, Gold Coast Packing and Babé Farms to Pay $900,000 in EEOC Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

LOS ANGELES – Santa Maria, California-based produce processing company Fresh Venture Foods, LLC and its sales and marketing companies Gold Coast Packing, Inc. and Babé Farms, Inc., will pay $900,000 and furnish extensive injunctive relief to settle class claims raised in a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sexual harassment and retaliation discrimination lawsuit, the federal agency announced today.

The EEOC’s lawsuit charged that since at least 2016, male employees of Fresh Venture Foods and different staffing agencies subjected a class of female workers at the Santa Maria facility to ongoing verbal and physical sex harassment, which included frequent, unwanted groping of their bodies; unwelcome sexual advances and comments about their appearance; propositions for sex; and repeatedly asking them out on dates. The suit also alleged that the defendants failed to adequately respond to multiple complaints of sexual harassment, some of the female employees were subjected to retaliation for complaining about sexual harassment, and some employees quit because the working conditions were so intolerable.

“Sexual harassment is a persistent problem in the agricultural industry,” said Beatriz Andre, acting regional attorney for the EEOC’s Los Angeles District Office. “The EEOC will continue to enforce federal law to ensure that all workers are afforded equal employment opportunities.”

Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on sex. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Fresh Venture Foods, LLC, et al, Case No. 2:21-cv-07679) in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

Christine Park-Gonzalez, district director for the EEOC’s Los Angeles District, said, “Retaliation and sexual harassment often go hand in hand. Employers are responsible for immediately addressing complaints of sexual harassment without negative repercussions for workers who are brave enough to come forward.”

The consent decree settling the suit, entered by U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall on Feb. 2, provides $900,000 in monetary relief for a class of female workers. It also includes extensive injunctive remedies requiring the companies to hire a third-party monitor; provide significant training and robust reporting mechanisms to ensure employees can report discrimination, harassment, and/or retaliation; establish a centralized tracking system for all complaints; provide notice of Title VII protections to all employees of the defendant staffing agencies; and update the companies’ anti-discrimination policies to prohibit discrimination based on sex.

For more information on sexual harassment, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment. For more information on retaliation, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/retaliation.

The EEOC’s Los Angeles District includes central and southern California, southern Nevada, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Wake Island and the Northern Mariana Islands, with offices in Los Angeles, Fresno, Las Vegas, San Diego and Honolulu.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.