Jamima Krutsinger felt “scared, violated, disgusted and powerless” by the lewd comments and sexual advances of an owner of a Des Moines nursing home, according to documents filed in Polk County District Court.
Krutsinger, a former medical supply coordinator at Fleur Heights care center, filed a lawsuit against the center and Allen Wolnerman, one of its owners. A trial date of May 11 was recently set, after a previous delay.
Krutsinger’s complaint about her superior’s harassment is just one of 2,917 complaints since the 2008-09 fiscal year that the Iowa Civil Rights Commission has received of sex-based discrimination.
A majority of those sex-based complaints to the commission deal with at least one “element” of harassment, said Beth Townsend, director of the state commission.
And for those like Krutsinger, who claims the center’s employees were aware of the harassment, but did little to stop it, an open courtroom is often a “last resort,” said Nancy Hauserman, a professor at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business and an expert in harassment.
“Most plaintiffs in lawsuits would tell you that making a formal report to an outside agency or to a court is a last resort,” Hauserman said. “They don’t start off that way. They start off trying to get something taken care of in the workplace and when they can’t over time, people get frustrated, they get angry and you see these formal suits.”
Krutsinger’s lawsuit claims Wolnerman sexually harassed and assaulted her during the two years she worked there.
Among other accusations, Krutsinger claims Wolnerman told her during a meeting in November 2011 that he could “make her have an orgasm just by sitting next to her,” according to the lawsuit. Wolnerman currently lives in Florida, the lawsuit says.
“I felt scared because I never knew what Mr. Wolnerman would say or do to me,” Krutsinger is quoted in court documents related to the case. “I was constantly on guard, wondering if he would try to touch me.”
Additionally, another male co-worker at the center, Don “Dusty” Gardner, made an advance toward Krutsinger in March 2012, telling her, “I know you’re gonna tell, but I want to (expletive) your brains out,” the lawsuit says. In court papers, Krutsinger said the environment Wolnerman created “emboldened” Gardner to harass her.
Brian Rickert, a defense attorney for Wolnerman and the care center, has denied all the accusations in court filings. In an interview, Rickert pointed to a move by Krutsinger’s attorneys voluntarily dismissing a claim of retaliation.
Rickert said he’ll file motions asking for the rest of the claims to be dismissed.
In November 2011, Krutsinger was promoted from her job as a certified nurse assistant to the center’s medical supply coordinator, according to the lawsuit. During a meeting that month, Wolnerman invited Krutsinger to join him on a trip to Las Vegas and “suggested” that the two could have a sexual relationship, the lawsuit says.
Krutsinger told an office manager after the meeting about Wolnerman’s behavior, according to the lawsuit.
The office manager told Krutsinger, “That’s just Allen. Don’t make him mad or he will make your life miserable,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit and court documents claim Wolnerman made inappropriate comments on other occasions, including telling Krutsinger, “Rich men will (expletive) you and not talk to you but I would.” When Krutsinger told Wolnerman she was “intimidated” by him, he replied, “That’s not what you were saying last night,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also claims Wolnerman “often” poked Krutsinger in the abdomen. Wolnerman once put his index finger into the front pocket of Krutsinger’s pants and “wiggled it back and forth between her hip and groin,” the lawsuit said.
Krutsinger complained to David Armington, an administrator at the home, about both Wolnerman and Gardner’s behaviors in a phone conversation, the lawsuit says. Armington said he would talk to Wolnerman about her complaints, but told Krutsinger days later that he was going to wait until Wolnerman was on-site, the lawsuit says.
Krutsinger left the job at the home on March 22, 2012, and started a job just more than a month later at another nursing home, according to court documents.
“I was excited to have a job in the nursing field and it made me feel powerless to realize that I had to leave or continue to endure sexual harassment,” Krutsinger said in court documents. “I often feel anxious about my life and the future.”
In documents filed with the case, Krutsinger’s attorneys claim that other employees at the center have also been harassed by Wolnerman. If the claims are valid, the environment Krutsinger described at the center is similar to those where claims of sexual harassment often occur, said Hauserman, the UI professor.
“Where people talk about it as a norm or repeated is where there is a workplace where there’s not much respect,” she said. “When you don’t have that, sexual harassment is common. So are lots of forms of harassment or bad treatment.”
iowa Sex-based complaints drop
In Iowa, claims of mistreatment by employers or others based on sex — whether its discrimination or harassment — are reported to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
The commission has seen decreasing numbers of sex-based complaints each year since 2009. During the 2009-10 fiscal year there were 717 complaints, according to the commission’s 2013 report.
The number of complaints dropped to 429 by the 2012-13 fiscal year. Though the commission lumps both sex discrimination and harassment into a category of “sex-based,” a majority of complaints based on sex have at least an “element” of harassment, said Beth Townsend, the director of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
Both Townsend and University of Iowa business professor Nancy Hauserman, an expert in sexual harassment, said it’s difficult to determine exactly what’s driving down numbers of sex-based complaints in the state. It will take three to four more years of data before a trend can be determined, Townsend said.
“Sometimes, in the best-case scenario, it means that people are paying more attention,” Hauserman said. “So that these kinds of problems, when they come up, are dealt with quickly and efficiently in-house.”
