Worker: My Playgirl Spread Cost Me My Job

A company that helps businesses handle personnel issues denies it forced one if its employees out of his job after it was discovered he had posed nude in Playgirl magazine. Daniel Sawka filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in May 2013 against ADP Inc. alleging sexual harassment. The company responded in a court filing yesterday. Sawka, who worked as a regional sales manager for ADP in Connecticut, alleges he was subjected to constant jokes and ridicule at work after a woman in his office discovered he had posed nude in the early 1990s in a lumberjack-themed spread for Playgirl and found the photos online.

Jokes included "a comment about homosexual men viewing the photos and what they would be doing while viewing the photos," according to the lawsuit. "(ADP) employees would say 'timber' or 'lumberjack' in reference to the plaintiff and the plaintiff's photos." Sawka, 49, says he went to the company's personnel department in February 2011 and was promised the company would take appropriate actions, but, he alleges, the company failed to end the ongoing sexual harassment and he was "constructively discharged," a legal term meaning the conditions were so intolerable he was forced to leave the job in March 2011. The company, in its response, denies there was a "pattern and practice" of jokes, sexually charged comments, and ridicule. (More strange stuff stories.)