Rights panel investigator finds in favor of DOT truck driver

AUGUSTA – A woman who drove a truck for the Department of Transportation likely was forced out of her job for reporting a leaky exhaust system in a vehicle she was forced to use, according to an investigator for the Maine Human Rights Commission.

The investigator also found that three women who had worked at the Home Port Inn and Mermaid Restaurant and Pub in Searsport likely were subjected to sexual harassment on the job.

The commission meets March 5 to rule on these and other complaints.

According to investigator Michelle Dion’s report, Dianne Luce of Arundel had worked for the DOT since 1997 in the York maintenance division.

Luce claimed she was denied training given to other employees, and that a record of training she completed was lost by her supervisors. In September 2005 her supervisors could not locate her truck, Luce claimed, which resulted in her losing overtime pay.

After Luce’s daughter died in an automobile crash in 2000, and she needed time off, she was demoted, she said. She also claimed a fellow employee put a piece of duct tape in her locker with the word “homosexual” written on it.

“I didn’t try to hide my sexual orientation, but I didn’t advertise it either,” Luce told the investigator.

In June 2005, the truck Luce regularly drove was moved, and her supervisors couldn’t locate it, she said. Luce was given another truck to drive.

“I found a hole in the muffler, and exhaust leaks all the way back to the turbo,” Luce said. The truck had been inspected by a DOT mechanic. Luce said the man who regularly drove the truck had been out of work with possible carbon monoxide poisoning.

The driver received photographs of the leaky exhaust sent anonymously, Luce said, which she claimed DOT management incorrectly attributed to her. Supervisors also frequently took disciplinary action against her, which Luce attributed to retaliation.

She resigned in February 2006.

The DOT’s response to her claims was that Luce was generally “a skilled employee who seemed unable to consistently follow DOT rules and policies. She was also disruptive in the workplace, uncooperative, argumentative and caused problems with other employees.”

Investigator Dion concluded the DOT’s actions after Luce reported the exhaust leaks “demonstrate retaliatory intent,” and found reasonable grounds exist in her claim of being pressured to quit for protected “whistle-blower” activities.

Dion did not find substance to Luce’s claim that she was forced to quit because of her gender.

Dion also found reasonable grounds to complaints filed with the commission by Cindy Damon of Stockton Springs, Amanda Edmands of Stockton Springs and Meghan Porter of Searsport against George Johnson, owner of The Home Port Inn and The Mermaid Restaurant and Pub in Searsport.

The three women were employed at the inn and restaurant doing housekeeping, cooking and waitressing. All three described the alleged actions of a cook, identified in the report as “Mr. P. Nickerson,” which included his making graphic sexual remarks to women, showing a sexually explicit photograph of himself to one of the women, and grabbing the women’s buttocks.

The women repeatedly complained to Johnson of Nickerson’s behavior, they said.

Johnson told the investigator the women did not complain about the behavior, and the first time he heard of it was when he learned of the complaint to the commission.

In her conclusions, Dion found Johnson “was far from credible” in his claim of not knowing about the cook’s alleged behavior. She found reasonable grounds to the women’s claims that they were forced to quit because of the sexual harassment, or because Johnson reduced their hours after they complained.

Complaints supported by the commission proceed to conciliation hearings. If that process fails, the complaint continues to Superior Court where a final settlement can include monetary damages.