NorVal Loses Appeal to HRC

The Montana Human Rights Commission has ruled in favor of Shalaine Lawson following an appeal on the decision of an administrative hearing officer who decided that NorVal Electric Cooperative and NorVal’s General Manager Craig Herbert were guilty of sexual harassment and retaliation against her.

According to the HRC decision, NorVal had argued that Herbert’s conduct had not met the level of “actionable sexual harassment” because it had not included, “assaults, physical contact, uninvited sexual solicitations, intimidating words or acts, obscene language or gestures, [and] pornographic pictures.” They further argued that the conduct was only “a few instances over several months, and it was not pervasive enough to be actionable sexual harassment.”

The Commission denied that argument and ruled that the hearing officer had correctly concluded that Lawson had suffered sexual harassment. They stated, “The Hearing Officer’s findings of fact regarding sexual harassment are supported by substantial competition of evidence, and the conclusions of law are correct.”

The Commission viewed NorVal’s argument against the hearing officer’s findings of retaliation as non-persuasive. NorVal argued that the findings were “both factually and legally wrong.” They further argued that the conversation between Lawson and Herbert in October had not constituted a report of sexual harassment and that she did not suffer any adverse employment actions as a result of that conversation. Lawson’s lawyer contended that she had made a report and that, in fact, she had made the report to the only person she was allowed to under NorVal policy—Herbert himself.

The Commission agreed with Lawson’s argument and against NorVal, backing the decision that the hearing officer was right in the findings about retaliation. They stated that the hearing, “correctly concluded that Lawson was subject to retaliation by engaging in the protected activity of complaining about sexual harassment and suffering adverse employment actions as a result.

Herbert had been the subject of a Human Rights Commission investigation that found he had sexually harassed Lawson through the course of much of 2017. Lawson confronted Herbert about the unwanted harassment but was blocked from filing a complaint—in part because NorVal had no policy allowing an employee to circumvent Herbert as the general manager and file a complaint with the board. After trying to do so, Lawson was retaliated against by Herbert in a myriad of ways—one of which was Herbert’s accusation that she was under investigation for mishandling the company’s money.

Lawson had also appealed the decision by the hearing officer but not on legal grounds. Lawson had appealed to correct several mathematical errors in the officer’s findings that increased the net finding by over $85,000. The Commission agreed with the corrected math argued by Lawson.

Providing comment to the Courier, Lawson’s lawyer, Todd Shea, stated, “We are pleased with the decision reached by the HRC upholding the sexual harassment and retaliation claims and increasing the damages awarded.”

A phone call and email to the NorVal attorney was not returned in time for the press deadline. NorVal has 30 days to appeal the decision in District Court or 90 days to pay the final sum.