Lawsuit: State employees worked in environment 'fraught with harassment'

Three Iowa Department of Revenue employees are suing the state, alleging department supervisors created a work environment "fraught with harassment and abuse" where victims were mocked by other employees, including in some cases their bosses.

The suit, filed in Polk County District Court last month, claims department officials knew their employee, Kenneth Kerr, was harassing and stalking other male employees but did nothing to intervene.

"My clients have been and continue to be horrified and humiliated by Mr. Kerr’s behavior and the Department of Revenue’s failure to protect them," said Melissa Schilling, an attorney representing the employees. "This lawsuit is intended to hold the defendants accountable and to ensure that other state employees and the people of Iowa never suffer such disturbing and completely unacceptable behavior."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue said that upon learning of the employees' allegations, "we immediately investigated the matter and took appropriate action." 

The state Attorney General’s office declined to comment on pending litigation. An attorney representing Kerr also declined to comment. 

According to the lawsuit, Kerr in 1997 began stalking fellow Department of Revenue employee Daniel Wagner "on a daily basis," allegedly following him to his home, to the golf course and to his son’s baseball games, as well as into office restrooms and parking lots.

Wagner complained to his supervisors who did nothing to prevent the harassment, the lawsuit claims. Instead, they "allowed (Department of Revenue) employees to mock, scrutinize, laugh at and make fun of" Wagner for having been the subject of that harassment, according to the lawsuit.

Kerr was fired from the Department of Revenue in August 2015. In November 2015, Wagner and two other men — Lloyd Lofton and Joshua Bates — filed criminal complaints alleging Kerr used a cell phone on multiple occasions to surreptitiously film them as they used the office restroom. 

Kerr pleaded guilty in 2016 to two counts of invasion of privacy and one count of sexually motivated stalking in relation to those incidents. He was sentenced to a two-year probation but has been accused of violating the terms of that probation.

Court documents indicate Kerr continued to possess an external hard drive with videos of his victims and admitted to entering public restrooms with the intent of viewing male genitalia while on probation. He currently is in custody at the Polk County Jail, and a hearing is scheduled for later this month.

Wagner, Lofton and Bates filed the lawsuit against the state seeking unspecified damages for allowing the alleged workplace incidents to occur. Department of Revenue Director Courtney Kay-Decker also is named as a defendant.

The lawsuit argues that Kay-Decker was "deliberately indifferent" to the need to adequately train employees and supervisors and that she showed a "reckless disregard" for the plaintiffs' complaints. 

Lofton alleges his direct supervisor mocked him for being the subject of harassment. 

“My clients went to work every day worried about being stalked, photographed, recorded by defendant Kerr, and even mocked for being victims to defendant Kerr’s behavior," Schilling said. "And yet (the department) did nothing for several years."

The lawsuit comes just weeks after a jury awarded a former Iowa legislative staffer $2.2 million in a sexual harassment and wrongful termination case.

Kirsten Anderson, a former communications director for the Senate Republican caucus, testified at trial about lewd comments male staffers made about lobbyists' breasts and the skirt lengths of female pages. Anderson was fired in May 2013 seven hours after filing a complaint documenting her concerns.

Since the verdict, Senate Republicans have faced criticism from Anderson and others who say they've done little to address the problems raised at trial. Their attorneys are seeking a new trial.

In response to that case, Gov. Kim Reynolds told reporters Tuesday that nobody should be the subject of workplace harassment "regardless of their gender."

"We have a zero-tolerance policy," she said. "Nobody should have to work in an environment like that."