He stuck up for a woman, got fired — then hit O'Reilly Auto Parts with $3M verdict
Jeramiah Glowacki says he has cried only twice in front of his children: When he told them he and their mom were splitting up, and years later when he lost his job at O'Reilly Auto Parts.
"I had to tell them, 'Your dad got fired for doing something that was right,'" the Michigan father recalled.
That "something" was sticking up for a woman who was being sexually harassed at work — a story he would later tell jurors who would ultimately vindicate him.
Glowacki won a verdict of nearly $3 million last month, convincing a federal jury in Lansing, Michigan, that his employer fired him in retaliation for exposing a high-ranking boss who was sexually harassing a woman while others watched and did nothing.
O'Reilly may fight the verdict
"I was ecstatic. There’s no feeling like it. I’ve never had a lot of luck in my life, ever," Glowacki said in a recent interview, noting he cried when his lawyer gave closing arguments. "What got me emotional was when he was talking about all the stuff I did for O'Reilly — and then O’Reilly would just fire me like that."
In an employment case involving a rare set of circumstances, 44-year-old Glowacki is speaking out for the first time about what he maintains was a culture of silence in the workplace: A female manager was being sexually harassed openly for two years, he said, but nothing happened until he stepped in.
Glowacki reported the harasser to human resources. The bad boss was fired — but so was Glowacki, who filed a retaliation lawsuit and won at trial.
According to court records, at least nine managers had witnessed the harassment over the years, but never reported it until Glowacki filed a complaint, triggering a company investigation that uncovered misbehavior of all sorts: unwanted touching, gifts, trips to her house and inappropriate text messages, including one in which the woman's supervisor sent "a photo of his erect penis."
"O’Reilly is aware of the verdict. While we respect the jury process, we disagree with the verdict and certain rulings made by the judge during trial," O'Reilly Auto Parts said Friday in a statement to the Paste BN Network. "We intend to file post-trial motions and, if necessary, an appeal.”
The company also defended its commitment to creating and maintaining a work environment free of "intimidation, bullying and harassment," stating: "O’Reilly does not tolerate a lack of respect, unlawful discrimination, or harassment of any kind. All team members, regardless of their positions, are expected to comply with this policy and to take appropriate measures to prevent prohibited conduct from occurring."
The three-day trial included testimony from only male witnesses, including Glowacki, who was fired in 2020 after a nine-year career with the company that came with promotions, awards, stock options, a 401(k) plan, and an $80,000 annual salary. The 44-year-old female victim — whom the Paste BN Network is not naming following policy not to identify victims — was not present at trial and declined to be interviewed for this story. A person who answered the phone at the O'Reilly store she manages said: “Please never call here again. (She) does not want to talk about it. If you call here again, I will call the police.”
After her harasser was fired, Glowacki said the woman sent him a message and thanked him.
In statements filed with the court, the woman described the boss's unwanted texts and other behavior. She said he twice whispered "I love you" in her ear and once "held me up against a wall and smiled."
He also told her he could never promote her, she wrote, stating: "He told me I could never be a (district manager) under him because he would end up getting a divorce."
'If Jeremy kept his mouth shut, he'd still be working'
The harassment case is unusual on a number of fronts:
The woman worked in Utah, while Glowacki worked in Michigan. He reported the harassment — not her — even though he worked thousands of miles away from where the harassment took place. And while it was his disclosure that led to the harasser's firing, he and the bad boss got fired on the same day.
"There’s no denying, if Jeremy just kept his mouth shut like everyone else, he’d still be working there," said Glowacki's lawyer Brian Farrar. "From Day One, this was no secret what had been going on. There were so many people at all levels of the company who knew about this harassment ... and no one did anything."
According to court documents, Glowacki and the woman had a brief, long-distance relationship, never had sex, communicated online and saw each other as friends at annual work conferences — where Glowacki witnessed the boss harassing the woman. The harasser was a district manager who got promoted to regional manager while the harassment was going on.
"This guy wasn’t sneaking around behind closed doors," Farrar said. "A lot of his behavior was out in the open and a lot of people knew it."
O'Reilly defends firing
In court documents and at trial, O'Reilly maintained that it had a "legitimate, non-retaliatory reason" to terminate Glowacki: He took too long to report the harassment, which violated O'Reilly policies and training, lawyers argued.
"(Glowacki) had almost two years to oppose the sexual harassment. He did not. Instead, after it got so bad at a January 2020 conference and (the victim) again complained to (him), he shared (her) complaint with human resources," O'Reilly attorney Suzanne Bartos wrote in a court filing. She also alleged that Glowacki knew he had an obligation to report the sexual harassment, "but he chose not to do so because (the victim) asked him not to report it."
The O'Reilly lawyer also attacked Glowacki's motives, alleging his actions and comments "paint a picture of a jealous boyfriend, not a concerned employee trying to report a violation of company policy."
The company's lawyer made those comments in an effort to get the case thrown out, arguing it had no merit. But Chief U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou concluded there was "sufficient evidence" to send the case to trial, noting that "many other managers" failed to report the harasser.
"Yet Glowacki is apparently the only employee who received any discipline," the judge wrote, adding "O’Reilly’s apparent decision not to take any disciplinary action against any other employee for not reporting (the harasser's) conduct lends some credence to Glowacki’s claim."
Roses, shoulder rubs, professions of love
Glowacki denies the company's version of events. He told the Paste BN Network how and when he discovered the harassment, when and why he disclosed it, and the financial and emotional fallout from doing so. According to court records, Glowacki, and Glowacki's lawyer, here is what happened:
In 2018, Glowacki met a woman on LinkedIn who managed a Utah O'Reilly store. He was a district manager by then, in charge of 10 stores in Michigan and Indiana, The two started communicating online, hit it off, and in April of that year, he flew to Utah to meet her in person. During that visit, the woman told him that her district manager had been sexually harassing her, doing "weird things" like leaving roses on her car and showing up at her home with soup when she was sick. She also told him that her boss had confessed his love for her at a work conference during a night of drinking.
Glowacki's relationship with the woman did not violate company policy because she was not one of his team members — though Glowacki said a romantic relationship with the Utah woman never materialized. They remained in contact briefly after that visit, and the two met up again at the company's annual conference in Dallas in 2019. They were hanging out at the conference when the woman's boss spotted them, "got mad and started acting jealous." He sent her angry text messages, so she went to talk to him and asked Glowacki to stay close by.
Glowacki followed but kept his distance as he watched the woman and her boss. He was rubbing her shoulders and caressing her hair.
'Don't do anything about it'
While keeping an eye on the Utah woman, Glowacki ran into his supervisor and another store manager, who also witnessed the harassment. They noticed Glowacki looked upset and asked what was wrong.
"I spilled the beans," Glowacki said in a deposition. "I said this guy right there has been harassing her for a long time and it needs to stop ... And that's when (my supervisor) said, 'Well, don't do anything about it.'"
At that point, Glowacki said he was relieved "to get this off my chest."
But added: "I wasn't going to let it go."
'He's up to it again'
A year later, the annual conference rolled around again in Dallas. Glowacki was there and spotted the same boss who had been harassing his Utah friend, so he texted the woman. "I said, hey, how's it going ... I just saw your boss."
"He's up to it again," the woman responded, alleging her boss had also groped another female employee's buttocks at the conference, and in the presence of several managers.
Glowacki was miffed.
"I'm like, 'You have to say something ... I don't know why you wouldn't,'" Glowacki recalled telling her.
It wasn't the first such conversation.
"Every time something like this happened … she'd be like, 'Yeah, I'm going to say something' and then apparently she wouldn't," Glowacki said in a deposition with O'Reilly lawyers.
'Enough is enough. This thing has escalated way too much'
For Glowacki, the 2020 conference was the final straw.
"I was thinking to myself, 'Enough is enough. This thing has escalated way too much,'" Glowacki said in a deposition, noting that the Utah woman had told him: "Don't say anything. My district manager is probably going to say something about it.'"
But by then, Glowacki had already flagged down a human resource official at the conference, told him what he had seen and heard, then filed an official report.
O'Reilly sent the accused harasser home early from the conference. An investigation followed.
Within a few weeks, the harasser was fired. So was Glowacki, who would later tell O'Reilly's lawyer: "I don't know how the hell she put up with it as long as she did."
Moving on
For Glowacki, the jury's verdict was a major win in his hardscrabble life. His mom died when he was 3. His father tried to raise him and his brother, though he ran away at 17 to escape what he described as an abusive stepmom. At 19, he got his GED, worked in fast food and at 23 found his calling in auto parts.
In 2011, he would land a dream job with O'Reilly, only to lose it for, as he put it, "doing the right thing."
"I didn’t know what I was going to do. On that way home — that was one of the longest drives home in my life," Glowacki said. "I had to tell my girlfriend I was fired. It was horrible."
But worse was telling his kids. He broke down crying.
"The only other time I felt like that was probably when the kids were 7 years old. I had to sit them down and tell them that me and their mom were splitting up. That was tough," Glowacki recalled.
But he carried on.
After losing his job, Glowacki got a lawyer, collected unemployment and eventually found work in landscaping and construction. He now works for a company that makes safety products.
"I think God has gotten me through a lot in my life, and sometimes I don’t thank him enough," Glowacki said, noting the financial hardships after losing his job weighed heavily on him. "You should see the shoes that I had to wear at trial — they were split down the middle."
He now calls them his lucky shoes.
"Luckily, they were able to understand exactly where I was coming from," Glowacki said of the jurors. "I loved my job. I took my job seriously … and it was all robbed from me."
Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com