CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – A Clarksville woman has filed a lawsuit against her former employer, GFL Environmental, after allegedly experiencing “severe and pervasive” sexual harassment from a supervisor.

The lawsuit, filed June 21, alleges that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title I of the Civil Rights act of 1991, were both violated as the sexual harassment created a hostile and unsafe work environment.

A slow boil

Heather Cummins, a 39-year-old mother of three, was hired at GFL in September of 2018 as the branch’s account manager.

Soon after her hiring at GFL, Cummins said the harassment started with “jokes” when she rejected her supervisor’s advances, and he used intimidating statements, “including but not limited to incessantly bragging about his clout in the waste industry, and that he owned tens-of-thousands of pre-IPO shares, if the company were to go public,” the lawsuit said.

“With regards to the harassment, it wasn’t directly on the first day but it started with jokes, and then it was an innuendo, and what happens is it’s like the analogy of the frog in the boiling water,” Cummins told Clarksville Now. “They just kind of put you in the cold, and they start turning it up.”

“I didn’t have a go-to response, it took me a long time to realize what was actually happening,” Cummins continued. “My response was to uncomfortably laugh or thank him; I literally didn’t know how to respond.”

Allegations against GFL

On one occasion, during a company conference in Atlanta in June 2019, the supervisor harassed Cummins via text message for seven hours, the lawsuit said.

The supervisor texted her the following statements: “Get my room next to yours;” “Haha, stop being up tight, these trips are to relax, I just like messing with you;” and “You puss,” allegedly followed by a picture of Donald Trump, the lawsuit said.

This went on for two days, and when Cummins responded via text and said, “You need to stop,” the supervisor began sending other hostile and harassing texts in addition to giving her additional work, according to the lawsuit.

When Cummins went to GFL’s human resources department in June 2020 about her supervisor’s conduct, she was told the company had a “zero tolerance policy” for sexual harassment, but that her supervisor would continue on in his position.

“I started realizing I was going to have to make a choice. I started having panic attacks at work, and then after I reported him, the way the company responded, I was having multiple panic attacks,” Cummins told Clarksville Now.

“I would crawl under my desk. Just complete terror, exhaustion, and not knowing how to process all of this.”

She continued to work there for a year after reporting the harassment, and the process of reaching a resolution, the company offered to compensate her but, in exchange, she would have to resign, agree to never work for the company again, sign a non-compete agreement and agree to strict confidentiality.

This would have ended her career, Cummins said.

She also said one of the ways the company tried to push her out was by discrediting her performance at work. According to Cummins, when she left the company in October 2020, she was at the top of her team in sales. She was never compensated, the lawsuit said.

“I wasn’t going to let them beat me,” Cummins told Clarksville Now.

Emotional toll

The supervisor involved is no longer with the company, but he was able to go on and start another, competing waste company in Tennessee.

Cummins said not only has the harassment affected her career and potential for finding other jobs, it’s also taken a massive emotional toll.

“I’ve had nightmares that have lasted for a long time, and I’ve been seeing a therapist for over two years now” Cummins said.

She said this experience was not only a bad experience for her, but also her three children who witnessed her distress.

“I think what a lot of people don’t know is that yes, it is incredibly traumatizing for the person who goes through this, but imagine coming home from school and your mom is crying in a closet,” Cummins said.

She also wants for things to change at GFL with regard to the company’s practice of handling harassment allegations.

“I would love to see policy change at the company, I would love to see women or anyone who comes out about discrimination, and it’s investigated,” Cummins said.

But she did have a word of advice to others who might find themselves in a similar situation.

“Find an attorney, or some kind of legal support before you go to HR because HR is not your friend. They are working to represent the company.”

Cummins is represented by Chicago-based attorney Tamara Holder, along with Anne Hunter and Heather Collins based in Brentwood.

Clarksville Now reached out to William Rutchow, a Nashville attorney representing GFL in the lawsuit, and he declined to comment on behalf of his client.