2 Women Win $3.7 Million in Sex Lawsuit

An Orange County jury has awarded $3.7 million to two women who said they were sexually harassed by their boss at the New York Life Insurance Co. office in Fullerton.

The insurance firm said Friday that it would appeal the Oct. 29 verdict, which a spokesman described as outrageous.

The civil lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court charged that a supervisor at the Fullerton office sexually assaulted one of the plaintiffs and harassed both of them.

The lawsuit also contended that the company failed to act when told of the problems and eventually fired the women.

Their attorney, William Paoli of Newport Beach, said one of the women came from Bangladesh, the other from Colombia.

They were both hired by the supervisor, who took advantage of them as recent immigrants.

The jury ordered that New York Life pay $3.5 million to the 27-year-old woman from Bangladesh, who had worked at the company for five years, and $175,000 to the 31-year-old Colombian woman, who had worked there for six months.

A spokesman for New York Life said the company strongly disagrees with the judgment and said any sexual relationships were consensual.

“We are shocked and outraged over the verdict,” spokesman William Werfelman said. “Once informed, the company acted swiftly and conducted its own investigation.”

Werfelman said the company’s investigation was stymied because the women refused to cooperate.

The probe did find, however, that the supervisor violated “internal rules of conduct.”

He would not elaborate further on the findings.

The supervisor no longer works for New York Life, but Werfelman said his dismissal was not related to the sexual harassment charges.