‘I won’t let you go home until you kiss me.’ Suit says IHOP manager harassed worker
A federal lawsuit accuses the owner of a Plantation IHOP franchise of sexually harassing female workers, including requests for sex, stalking in the restaurant parking lot and economic revenge after repeated sexual rejections.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the lawsuit Tuesday after failing to reach a conciliation agreement with Swami Pancake, the company through which 49-year-old Manish Patel owns the IHOP at 2 N. State Rd. 7. Patel works as a general manager in the restaurant, according to the suit, alongside his wife.
Repeated calls to the restaurant’s phone number ran into busy signals Wednesday. A call to a cellphone listed for Patel was answered by someone who asked if Patel could call back, but quickly hung up when he learned the Miami Herald was on the line.
Neleitha Hinson began working at the IHOP in October 2009 as a server. Soon after, the suit claims, Patel began asking her out to dinner; asking her to “have sex with him in differing locations”; began “making crude, sexually offensive comments” to her; and “frequently touching Hinson inappropriately” including going for unwanted hugs.
“Mr. Patel would regularly sit in the restaurant parking lot and wait for Ms. Hinson to finish her shift in order to make sexual advances to her, invite her to dinner, or for sex, while she was isolated from other employees and customers,” the suit said. “Mr. Patel also parked his car blocking Ms. Hinson’s car so that she could not drive her car. Mr. Patel yelled, ‘Why won’t you kiss me?’ and threatened, ‘I won’t let you go home until you kiss me.’ ”
Hinson became unnerved.
“When Mr. Patel would ask her to go to the manager’s office, she would ask other employees to knock on the office door and interrupt her meeting with Mr. Patel to avoid being alone with him for fear he would sexually harass her.”
Other women working at the IHOP received similar treatment, the suit says.
Hinson said one more rejection of Patel’s requests for sex in October 2017 brought crude comments from Patel about her genitals and a poor evaluation. Patel said he saw Hinton not charge a customer for drinks. That day, Patel also cut Hinson’s hours in half.
That forced her to resign.
The suit wants back pay, compensatory and punitive damages for Hinson and her female former coworkers who the EEOC claims were harassed by Patel.
This story was originally published March 20, 2019 at 1:20 PM.
