A federal lawsuit filed against airline caterer Gate Gourmet claims a Denver-area supervisor told an employee he did not give a damn about her sexual harassment complaint, and that the company fired her within months of her reporting a male colleague's conduct. The employee, hired at a Gate Gourmet facility near Denver International Airport in October 2022, was responsible for stocking trucks and loading catering onto airplanes before her termination in July 2023.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the lawsuit on August 28 in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, according to The Denver Post. Court filings reviewed by STL.News identify the woman at the center of the case as Maria Simon, who worked as a catering service worker at the company's Denver-area facility for roughly nine months. Case tracking records reviewed by PacerMonitor list the matter as Case No. 1:26-cv-04015, with Seth H. Garfinkel named as trial attorney.
According to the lawsuit, a male mentor at Gate Gourmet made sexualized comments and gestures toward the employee, asked her to bend over so he could look at her backside, and asked her to lean back in her seat to give him a better view of her breasts. The lawsuit alleges he frequently stared at her as well. When she reported the harassment to her supervisors, the complaint states that other supervisors ignored or mocked her complaints, and one supervisor reportedly told her he did not give a damn about her report.
No Investigation, Then Termination
Gate Gourmet did not conduct an investigation into the reported harassment, according to the lawsuit. Officials at the company allegedly told the employee not to return to work because she complained a lot, and she was terminated in July 2023, per the complaint's timeline.
The EEOC opened its investigation into Gate Gourmet in October 2023 and determined in March 2026 that the company had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects workers against discrimination in the workplace. Federal law required the agency to attempt informal conciliation before suing, and the lawsuit states that Gate Gourmet officials declined an opportunity to remedy the discriminatory practices before the case reached federal court. Gate Gourmet officials did not respond to requests for comment, the Denver Post reports.
Mary Jo O'Neill, an EEOC official quoted in the case materials, said employers must take decisive action after an employee reports sexual harassment and conduct a meaningful investigation. She added that people should be able to earn a paycheck without having to tolerate harassing comments, remarks, or indignities. Sherrie Hayashi, another official cited in the case, said sexual vulgarities and references to someone's body features can amount to a hostile work environment when an employer fails to act.
A Global Caterer With Local Roots
Gate Gourmet is described in the lawsuit as a Virginia-based global airline catering company that serves flights at Denver International Airport. It is also the primary airline catering subsidiary of gategroup Holding AG, a Zurich-based aviation services company operating in more than 60 countries with over 45,000 employees and 2024 revenues of roughly CHF 5.2 billion, or about $5.8 billion, according to background compiled by Wikipedia.
The case falls under the jurisdiction of the EEOC's Phoenix District Office, which covers Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and part of New Mexico. It is not the company's first brush with federal discrimination litigation. In the 2012 case Williams v. Gate Gourmet, Inc., the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a summary judgment ruling in the company's favor, finding sufficient circumstantial evidence of pregnancy discrimination and unlawful retaliation after a worker filed an EEOC complaint. In May 2015, 14 Spanish-speaking catering and janitorial workers at Los Angeles International Airport sued Gate Gourmet after management allegedly barred them from speaking Spanish on shift.
Colorado Law Raises the Bar for Employers
The lawsuit also arrives against the backdrop of Colorado's Protecting Opportunities and Workers' Rights Act, which took effect in August 2023 and eliminated the federal “severe or pervasive” threshold for harassment claims under state law. Under the POWR Act, described by the Colorado General Assembly, harassment is defined as unwelcome conduct that is subjectively offensive to the victim and objectively offensive to a reasonable person in the same protected class, placing greater responsibility on employers to respond quickly to complaints.
Denver's airport has seen federal scrutiny of catering operations before. In January 2025, United Airlines agreed to pay $99,000 and issue 75,000 frequent flyer miles to settle an EEOC lawsuit alleging it failed to promptly investigate a physical assault and racial slurs targeted at an Asian American catering worker at Denver International Airport, per the agency's own newsroom account.
Under Title VII, combined compensatory and punitive damages in federal discrimination suits are capped at $300,000 per complaining worker for employers with more than 500 employees, a limit set by federal statute. Nationally, the EEOC received 88,531 discrimination charges in fiscal year 2024, a 9% increase over the prior year, with harassment cited in 40.4% of filings and retaliation cited in nearly half. It remains unclear whether Gate Gourmet will contest liability or negotiate a settlement, and how much monetary and injunctive relief the EEOC will ultimately seek in the case.
