The arrival of spring appears to have brought about the budding of restaurant-related legal battles—or at least the conclusion of them. Friday, the EEOC announced a Houston Pizza Hut franchisee paid tens of thousands of dollars after the U.S. agency filed a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against them.
Ayvaz Pizza, LLC settled with the EEOC and must pay $35,000 to a former general manager who had previously worked at a Pizza Hut in Porter. The Sugar Land-based franchisee must also provide a letter of reference, update its anti-discrimination policies, provide anti-discrimination training to employees, and report annually all sex-based discrimination and harassment complaints at select facilities, including action taken, to the federal agency.
Friday’s news follows the conclusion of a lawsuit that was filed in 2024 in the Texas Southern District Court. In the lawsuit, the EEOC argued the former Pizza Hut GM experienced a hostile working environment starting in 2022 after she broke up with her supervisor. That person was in the role of what Pizza Hut calls an “area coach.” When the relationship ended, she said her former boyfriend denied “necessary” support and resources to her store and repeatedly ignored her requests.
In the lawsuit, the former Pizza Hut GM alleged one instance when the former boyfriend had attempted to get her to discuss their relationship in the store’s parking lot. When she refused, he threw a can of Red Bull at her.
According to the EEOC, the former Pizza Hut GM reported the harassment to the company’s operations manager and HR on Oct. 14, 2022. More than two weeks later, she was fired and presented with seven writeups that she had never seen before. In its legal complaint, the federal agency said Ayvaz Pizza had harassed its former employee because of her sex and then fired her for reporting the harassment.
Ayvaz, in its defense, denied the former Pizza Hut GM was harassed or retaliated against, and said she was fired for cause.
But on March 19, Ayvaz and the EEOC opted to settle the issue. The franchisee would pay its former employee $17,500 in back wages plus an additional $17,500 in damages.
“Employers must ensure that their human resources and management staff are effectively trained against sex discrimination and retaliation,” said Claudia Molina-Antanaitis, EEOC senior trial attorney, in a statement. “The training of such employees must include preventing and responding to discrimination and not punishing employees who oppose it.”