Biloxi music venue settles federal suit alleging it fired assistant manager after she reported sexual harassment

MOBILE, Ala. – Ground Zero Biloxi LLC, operator of the Ground Zero Blues Club, a music venue and restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, will pay $35,000 and provide other relief to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

According to the EEOC’s suit, one of the company’s co-owners sexually harassed an assistant manager through repeated sexual comments and unwelcome physical contact. The suit also said that the company’s managers failed to protect the assistant manager from the co-owner’s harassment. The agency charged that the company fired the assistant manager in September 2023, in retaliation for reporting the co-owner’s harassment to its chief financial officer.

“Employers are responsible for preventing and remedying sexual harassment in their businesses,” said Marsha Rucker, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Birmingham District. “When the harasser is the business owner, employees face an inherent power imbalance that can leave them without an effective internal remedy, which is why employers may be held strictly liable under federal law.”

This alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Ground Zero Biloxi LLC, Case No. 1:25-cv-00173-TBM-RPM) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

Acting EEOC Birmingham District Director Linda Sales-Long said, “Standing up against sexual harassment at work takes courage to defend your rights. If an employer retaliates against an employee for defending their rights, the EEOC is ready to remedy the illegal conduct.”

For more information on sexual harassment, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment. For more information on retaliation, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/retaliation.

The EEOC’s Birmingham District Office has jurisdiction over Alabama, Mississippi (except for 17 northern counties) and the Florida Panhandle.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.