A Florida IHOP owner will pay $70,000 after a worker said he asked for kisses and sex
The owner and manager of a Plantation IHOP denies he did anything wrong with female employee who said he repeatedly asked her for dates, kisses and sex. That’s in the consent decree settling a federal sexual harassment suit.
Also in the consent decree: Manny Patel will pay $70,000 to settle the suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Neleithan Hinson.
The consent decree also requires Patel, who owns the IHOP at 2 N. State Rd. 7 through his Swami Pancake company, to do three hours of one-on-one anti-sexual harassment/sex discrimination management training annually for three years. Patel’s wife and assistant manager, Bina Patel, has to go through the same training.
Patel has to give a positive job reference letter for Hinson.
According to the EEOC suit, Hinson worked at Patel’s IHOP restaurant from October 2009 through October 2017. Throughout her time there, she claimed, she and other women there suffered Patel’s incessant, unwanted mating attention.
“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.’ ”
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 9:18 AM.
