Woman Wins $30,000 In Sexting Case

A Canadian woman was awarded $30,000 in damages in a sexual harassment suit against her boss, who sent her such disturbing text messages as, “Can I date your daughter?”

According to CBC, Lisa McIntosh was dating Zbigniew Augustynowicz, her boss at British Columbia’s Metro Aluminum Products Ltd. They broke up, but he kept texting her, and the texts grew “increasingly sexually humiliating, demeaning and derogatory” — in addition to the creepy daughter-dating request (McIntosh is a single mom of two), Augustynowicz also said, “I need a nooner.” And when she rejected his textual advances, he’d cut her hours at work.

Defense lawyers (predictably) argued that McIntosh was a flirt, and totally asked for it by responding to the texts. The judge, however, didn’t buy it, ruling that “McIntosh was clear she wanted the abuse to stop, that there was no evidence she was an office flirt, and that Augustynowicz would have known his texts were offensive and unlawful.” Really, it shouldn’t matter whether McIntosh flirted with other coworkers (unless her flirtation made those coworkers feel harassed, which would still be a separate issue). What matters is that harassment via text is still harassment, and it’s good that courts are now recognizing that fact.

Sexting Case Ends In $30K Award For Woman [CBC]

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