Legal News

5th Cir. Hears Appeal in Alleged Halliburton Rape Case

By Ashby Jones

The Fifth Circuit heard arguments on Monday in an interesting case involving a Texas woman who claims she was raped by co-workers while working for Halliburton Co. in Iraq. Click here for the early AP report.

The woman, Jamie Leigh Jones, sued Halliburton and several subsidiaries in 2005. Halliburton says Jones signed an agreement that requires all of her claims against the companies stemming from the alleged rape to be resolved through private arbitration.

But Jones wants her case to be heard by a federal-court jury, not a panel of arbitrators.

Jones's lawyer, Daniel Ross, argued at the lower-court level that the clause should not apply to a claim involving sexual assault because it was not a "work-related" matter. In his decision, federal district court judge Keith Ellison found in her favor, writing: "This court does not believe that plaintiff’s bedroom should be considered the workplace, even though her housing was provided by her employer." Click here for a report on that decision, which was handed down last May; click here for that decision itself.

Shortly after the ruling, Halliburton subsidiary KBR issued a statement saying: "KBR in no way condones or tolerates sexual harassment . . . Any reported allegation of sexual harassment is taken seriously and thoroughly investigated."

No criminal charges have been brought in the case.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).