Paula Deen Sued for Sexual Harassment by Former Employee
According to TVGuide.com, Food Network star Paula Deen and her brother are being sued for sexual harassment by a former general manager of a Georgia restaurant which is co-owned by the siblings.
According to the law suit filed, the former manager, Lisa Jackson, was employed at Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House in Savannah from 2005 to 2010. Jackson maintains that Deen and her brother Bubba Heirs made ""inappropriate and racist remarks" to her while she worked at the restaurant.
Jackson has claimed that "Heirs regularly made offensive, sexual comments at Jackson, targeted her with unwanted advances (he once kissed her and then spit on her), watched pornography in the office they shared, distributed pictures of women having sex at a meeting and complained about heavier staff members."
Jackson, who is white, also claims that the duo used racial slurs and that Heirs once "violently shook a black employee." The law suit states that black staff members were barred from using a customer restroom and were required to use the back entrance to the restaurant.
The former manager left her job in August of 2010 after she began to suffer from panic attacks. She says that she "continues to endure immense pain and has suffered greatly at the hands of Defendants' outrageous and intolerable conduct." Jackson is seeking unspecified damages.
