A former Eureka Springs city employee filed a civil lawsuit last month against Mayor Butch Berry, finance director Lonnie Clark and human resources coordinator Jerry King, alleging that she was subjected to a hostile and abusive work environment.
Eureka Springs attorney Tim Parker filed the lawsuit June 15 in Carroll County Circuit Court on behalf of Dannelle Tomarchio of Eureka Springs.
In the lawsuit, which also names the city itself as a defendant, Tomarchio alleges that King “would repeatedly and consistently make reference to topics of a sexual nature to Tomarchio.”
Tomarchio asked King to stop making sexual references, the lawsuit says.
“King refused and at times would yell or scream at Tomarchio,” the lawsuit says. “King also refused to take direction from Tomarchio who was responsible for training King to perform his job.”
Tomarchio complained to Clark and Berry, requesting that they take action to stop King’s sexual remarks, according to the complaint. She also requested that either she or King be moved to a different work area, the complaint says.
“Despite Tomarchio’s repeated complaints regarding King’s conduct and sexual references, Clark and Berry refused to take any affirmative action to end King’s disruptive conduct and sexually oriented references which created a hostile work environment for Tomarchio,” the complaint says.
The complaint says Tomarchio “subsequently underwent prolonged hospitalization for the problems proximately caused by the actions and omissions of the Defendants.”
Tomarchio filed a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on April 12, alleging that she was discriminated against based on her sex and disability from March 1 through Aug. 19, 2021.
In the charging document, Tomarchio writes that she was hired in November 2019 as an administrative bookkeeper and that in March 2021 a co-worker began making jokes and comments of a sexual nature.
In April 2021, she complained about the co-worker’s sexual comments and requested an accommodation for her disability, Tomarchio writes. In July 2021, she was yelled at by a coworker and spoke to the mayor regarding a reasonable accom modation, Tomarchio writes. On or about Aug. 19, 2021, she was asked what could be done to accommodate her and was provided headphones “to help with the noise level,” Tomarchio writes.
“I was told by the Mayor that the coworker could be moved to another office as my accommodation for the noise level, but my supervisor did not agree,” Tomarchio writes. “I believe I was denied reasonable accommodation and constructively discharged due to my disability … and subjected to jokes and comments of a sexual nature due to my sex …”
Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary describes constructive discharge as “when an employee quits a job because working conditions are so intolerable that a reasonable person in the same situation would quit.”
The EEOC dismissed Tomarchio’s charge on April 17, writing that the dismissal was “because your charge was not filed within the time limits under the law; in other words, you waited too long after the date of the alleged discrimination to file your charge.”
The EEOC dismissal notice advised Tomarchio that if she chose to file a lawsuit based on her charge, it must filed within 90 days of her receipt of the dismissal notice.
In the complaint, Parker asks for compensatory damages of $500,000 and punitive damages of $500,000 on Tomarchio’s behalf.
King said by email on Friday, July 15, that he was not aware of Tomarchio’s lawsuit. Neither Berry nor Clark responded to emails seeking comment.
