SYLMAR : Bottling Plant Worker Sues Coke for Sex Harassment

A Simi Valley woman has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the Coca-Cola Bottling Co., alleging that as an employee of its Sylmar plant she endured years of “vile, sexually descriptive” remarks and advances.

Some remarks were so crass and upsetting that she vomited, plaintiff Kelly Duhs charges in her lawsuit.

Duhs, 35, a forklift operator, was teased about her genitalia and sexual practices and was compared to a life-sized blow-up doll kept in the bottling plant’s office, according to her lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified sum of money.

Officials at Coca-Cola Enterprises headquarters in Atlanta refused to comment, saying they had not received a copy of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit says that the harassment against Duhs began eight months after she started working at the Sylmar plant in May, 1990. She was the only full-time woman employee among about 50 men.