Seeking Justice: Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni, & Rivers Represents Former DTE Employee Subject to Egregious Sexual Harassment by Customer

Attorney: Cary McGehee

May 2, 2024 - Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni, & Rivers proudly represent Angela Rodriguez, a former customer service representative (CSR) at DTE Energy, who endured repeated sexual harassment at the hands of a customer.

After receiving a sexually harassing call from a customer, during which he masturbated on the phone, DTE CSR, Angela Rodriguez, immediately reported the incident to her supervisor. Her supervisor told her that DTE knew about the customer and his sexually harassing calls because he had called other female CSRs and behaved similarly in the past. When Angela asked her supervisor to take action to  prevent this from happening again and for direction on how she could protect herself, DTE management told her that it was against company policy to hang up on the customer or block his calls, and placing him on hold and transferring him to a supervisor would impact her performance ratings, compensation and continued employment. Ultimately, DTE told Angela that if she received a sexually harassing call in the future, she would just have to handle the call until the customer decided to end it.

DTE was more concerned about revenue and call times than the health and welfare of its employees. Management told her that they would report the incident to Corporate Security, but they never did. Consequently, the harassment continued with Angela receiving multiple sexually harassing calls from the same customer with no remedial action taken by DTE. The emotional trauma of enduring these calls, the knowledge that DTE was not going to take any action to stop it, and DTE’s total disregard for her health and wellbeing lead to Angela suffering an emotional breakdown forcing her on a medical leave of absence. She was then terminated by DTE a few months later.

Attorney Cary McGehee highlights the severity of the situation, stating, “They required her, as a condition of employment, to tolerate and endure sexual harassment from a customer that included masturbation on the phone.” Angela's courage in speaking out against DTE's failure to address the harassment resonates deeply, emphasizing the critical importance of holding corporations accountable for failing to foster safe work environments for its employees.

Only after Angela retained Ms. McGehee and McGehee wrote a letter to DTE informing the company that it had violated Angela’s civil rights, did the company finally report the incidents to Corporate Security,  alert other CSRs to this customer’s identity and his inappropriate sexual behavior and institute a new policy for “Sexually Explicit Customer Comments,” permitting the CSR to put the customer on hold and then escalate the call to a leader or analyst.

"DTE is a multi-billion-dollar company with an experienced human resources department. It is disgraceful that the company did not already have such a policy in place. It is obvious that DTE was more concerned about call times and revenue than the health and welfare of its employees,” McGehee said. "I just don’t know the breadth of how many women were subjected to this man.”

The entire team at Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni, & Rivers look forward to holding DTE Energy and the EPA accountable for their grievous misconduct and securing a just recovery for our client.

###

Read More Here:

Detroit Free Press: Customer service rep sues DTE: I was forced to stay on phone with masturbating customer

Fox 2 Detroit: Lawsuit: Ex-DTE rep forced to listen to customer masturbate due to policy

Trenton Herald: Trenton woman files lawsuit against DTE for having to listen to masturbating customer