Garden City Jeep to pay $175G to settle sexual harassment lawsuit

A Long Island auto dealer and one of its dealerships have settled a lawsuit alleging that a former inventory manager sexually harassed female employees, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

VIP Auto Group of Long Island Inc. and Garden City Jeep Chrysler Dodge will pay $175,000 in the settlement of the lawsuit brought by the EEOC, the agency said in a news release. Garden City Jeep, which sells new and used cars in Hempstead, is one of multiple dealerships owned by VIP Auto Group of Long Island, according to court documents.

According to the lawsuit, since January 2020 an inventory manager at Garden City Jeep made comments of a sexual nature and touched female employees' breasts and other parts of their bodies, among other allegations.

VIP Auto Group of Long Island and Garden City Jeep did not respond to calls for comment. An attorney for the businesses did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Both VIP and Garden City Jeep are listed as each having 15 employees, according to court filings.

The lawsuit, which identified one former female employee as the charging party in the case, said other female employees were subject to discrimination related to sexual harassment but did not list a total number of impacted female workers. 

Other managers witnessed these incidents while the female employees complained repeatedly to management and human resources, along with filing EEOC charges and a federal lawsuit, but nothing happened, the EEOC said in a news release. 

“One woman after another refused to accept the inventory manager’s sexual harassment,” said Daniel Seltzer, trial attorney in the EEOC’s New York District Office, in a statement announcing the settlement. “Now, thanks to their courage in coming forward, other employees at Garden City Jeep won’t have to.”

According to the lawsuit, multiple internal complaints were filed concerning the manager's behavior in early 2021, and much of the alleged behavior was witnessed by other managers. 

In September 2021, the EEOC filed charges of discrimination relating to sexual harassment, the suit said. In March 2022, a federal court lawsuit was filed against Garden City Jeep.

The defendants were alleged to have told the female charging party in the case that they would terminate the inventory manager but instead gave him "only a ten-day suspension and a final warning," the suit said. 

The settlement requires that the dealership not rehire the manager, but did not indicate when he was terminated, according to the agreement.

New York State Division of Corporations records show VIP Auto Group of Garden City filed its initial business registration in 2016.

The lawsuit resolution also requires training for the defendants’ owners, managers and human resources employees focusing on the prevention and correction of harassment, along with revisions to the employee handbook.

A 2017 survey of women in the automotive industry by Automotive News found 65.1% of respondents said they received unwanted sexual advances while on the job. An older 2003 report from the EEOC found automotive dealers and service stations had the highest “per capita allegations of gender-based discrimination” of industries it examined.