Former employees file suit against Rohnert Park’s Black Bear Diner, alleging sexual misconduct, labor law violations

Four former employees are suing the Black Bear Diner in Rohnert Park, claiming the restaurant subjected them to sexual abuse and harassment, violated labor laws by not paying them overtime and hours worked and engaged in unfair labor practices.

They filed two separate lawsuits in Sonoma County Superior Court this week against the restaurant, its corporate owner and its franchise operator, Prestige Foods Inc. They also name Gurjit Singh, one of the Prestige Foods owners and a direct supervisor.

The first suit alleged the restaurant failed to protect female workers from pervasive sexual harassment and assault, and that a male employee was fired for speaking out against the sexual misconduct and other perceived wrongdoing. The second suit, which seeks class-action status to represent all hourly employees since July 2015, claimed Black Bear Diner’s Rohnert Park location didn’t give them breaks and failed to pay them adequately for all the? hours they worked.

The popular restaurant chain’s corporate office was alerted to the wrongdoing and took no action to stop it, according to the lawsuits, filed by the Petaluma firm O’Brien Law, P.C. on behalf of the four plaintiffs.

The wage-and-hour suit names Jasvinder Kaur, another owner of Prestige Foods.

Additionally, the Rohnert Park diner manager, Abel Diaz, is named as a defendant in the first suit alleging sexual misconduct.

According to that suit, one of the plaintiffs, who is 17 years old, had been groped by five cooks after they followed her into a walk-in freezer, turned out the lights and locked her in when she was 16. The girl was 14 when she was hired without the requisite work permit, the suit alleged.

Another plaintiff, Amanda Wolf, said in the suit she was fired for becoming pregnant. A third, Claudia Cairo, alleged she was frequently subjected to sexual comments and at one point a cook shoved her against a wall and kissed her neck.

Another plaintiff, Jose Bustillos, claimed in the suit he reported sexual harassment of the two women and teen to Diaz and was “told to mind his own business.” He said in the suit he was fired after he wrote a letter to Black Bear’s corporate office detailing his concerns about sexual harassment, as well as sanitary conditions at the restaurant, including a rat infestation.

According to the suit, Black Bear’s corporate office sent an employee to look into the situation after receiving Bustillos’ letter, but only spoke with Diaz and not Bustillos or any of the other workers. As a result, “Nothing changed,” the suit claimed.

Kaur and Diaz could not be reached.

Singh did not return a request for comment to an email address for him provided by Black Bear’s corporate office.

A manager at Black Bear’s Rohnert Park location who gave his name as Andres Reyes said Diaz was not available, and added “I can tell you everything is good here, everything is fine.”

Denise Johnson, the communications manager at Black Bear’s corporate office, referred questions to Singh, and said the complaints raised in the suit are “definitely an HR issue” that would have to be addressed by Singh.

“We do not have any handle on their HR, who they hire, who they reprimand, who they retrain,” she said.

Asked about the suit’s allegations that Black Bear’s corporate office sent a representative to investigate, Johnson said “I don’t know anything about that.”