LOS ANGELES, CA — One of the nice things about being a millionaire is that you can do pretty much whatever you want in your office, so long as the money keeps being made. If a sexual harassment complaint filed against Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt is any indication, there may be a caveat: if “pretty much whatever you want” includes sex, keep it quiet.Reversing both a November 2006 and January 2007 ruling by Los Angeles Supreme Court Judge Judith C. Chirlin, a three-justice panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal has given plaintiff Cheryl Oldham the green light to return her sex and age harassment complaint to the courtroom.
Oldham contends that Flynt once called her into his office and informed her that she was “overweight, unattractive, over 50, and probably unable to find another job,” which made him ask, “So, why would you do this to me?”
“This,” according to Oldham, was support a female co-worker who had shared her unhappiness with the office culture and by filing a complaint about it. When previously called into Flynt’s office, Oldham says she refused to testify that he not only did not harass anyone, but that she’d never heard sex noises emanating from his office.
According to court documents, after helping the co-worker in her claim against Flynt, Oldham was demoted to video company receptionist, where she labeled Federal Express envelopes, among other low level duties. Oldham insists that Flynt testified at an arbitration hearing that he couldn’t “stand the sight of” her and “wanted to fire her,” but had been advised against it.
At issue is a behavior that Oldham claims predates her hiring as a corporate secretary in 1999 and which she was warned about by Flynt’s assistant at the time: Flynt’s fondness for loud sex with prostitutes in his office. Although his wife works in the same building, Oldham’s lawsuit indicates that she has been ignorant of his executive office romps and that she was instructed to “divert and distract Mrs. Flynt at all costs until Fynt could get the prostitutes out of the building.”
Neither Mrs. Flynt nor any of the Flynt Publishing administrative staff have apparently attended an AVN Awards ceremony where female presenters and recipients alike have shared tales of the infamous and freedom fighting publisher’s oral technique.
Oldham’s suit further contends that not only did the aforementioned prostitutes spend time alone with Flynt, but they “made loud, obnoxious and repeated noises of sexual gratification that disrupted the office and (her) ability to perform the essential functions of her job.”
Once, the lawsuit contends, those functions included covering for Flynt’s personal secretary and scheduling visits from prostitutes.
When she complained to the human resources department, she contends that she was told “I don’t want to know anything. I don’t want to hear it. I know nothing.”
The case can now move forward within binding arbitrations, where Oldham hopes for resolution to a situation her case claims has left her “sick, sore, lame, and disabled.”
