"At Juno, Friday night 'Happy Hour' was in essence a meat market ... reminiscent of a Roman orgy ... with most of the men trying to enter into a sexual relationship with females," the plaintiff's attorney, David Jaroslawicz, said on Tuesday.
The lawyer said women at Juno worked in "a hostile work environment" and were "considered second-class citizens, not to be taken seriously and ... referred to in vulgar terms."
The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Nov. 26 by Lori Park, 25, a former software engineer, named Juno Online Services and executives Matthew Battles, a senior vice president, and Mark Moraes, an executive vice president.
Juno denied the allegations. Park was treated "in a professional and lawful manner," Senior Vice President Richard Buchband said. "Our firm has strict policies ... to protect our employees against any mistreatment in the workplace," he said.
'Physically abusive' relationship Park alleged that her troubles began a month after she started to work for the company in December 1998 and dated Battles. After he became "physically abusive," the suit claims she had to call police. Battles allegedly told her later that if she broke up with him, Moraes would fire her.
The suit claimed that "the entire atmosphere at Juno was sexually charged with sexual innuendo; Even the Juno ad campaign contained sexual innuendo, with a female 'giving it' to a male or group of males."
Park named at least a dozen women she claimed were also sexually harassed and spoken about in vulgar terms at the Internet giant, including another former employee who earlier filed a US$10 million sexual-abuse suit against the firm.
Park, a Harvard graduate who quit the company in July after working there 18 months, moved to Palo Alto, Calif., and works as a programmer at Google Inc., another Internet firm.
In October Juno reported third-quarter revenues of US$13.1 million, up from US$5.1 million a year ago.
