Panda Express manager ‘assaulted’ 18-year-old pregnant cook after she refused to get abortion, lawsuit alleges
The plaintiff claims her manager made negative comments about her pregnancy and forced her to do harder jobs at the restaurant
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A 19-year-old former Panda Express cook has filed a lawsuit against the manager of a New Jersey Panda Express, alleging that he verbally berated her and eventually assaulted her after she refused to get an abortion at his request.
Romerian Logan claimed that BiQing Liu, the manager of Panda Express at Newport Centre Mall in Jersey City, made insulting comments about her pregnancy and suggested that she have an abortion after finding out she was pregnant.
Logan, who was 18 at the time, declared that weeks after the negative comments began, Liu assaulted her as she was attempting to leave the restaurant at the end of her shift. She claimed her boss’ actions made for a hostile work environment.
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A former Panda Express employee is suing the company and one of its managers after said manager allegedly berated and assaulted her for not getting an abortion as he requested. (Universal Images Group/Getty)
In her lawsuit, the young woman also accused the Chinese restaurant chain’s upper management and HR department of not stepping in to help her situation.
Logan’s lawyer Margaret T. Korgul alleged that Liu broke New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination by not making accommodations for her pregnancy but rather harassing her for it.
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Logan filed the lawsuit in New Jersey state court last week, which alleged that the tension began between her and her boss once she told him that she had gotten pregnant.
The suit claimed that this is when Liu "started making negative comments" about her pregnancy and "suggested" that she terminate it. After three months, the document claimed that her boss "physically assaulted (Logan) by physically restraining her from leaving the workplace after her shift."
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A former New Jersey Panda Express cook sued the restaurant chain for a manager that allegedly assaulted her because she refused to get an abortion when he asked. ((Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images))
In addition to Liu and the company, the suit has targeted several so-far-unidentified co-defendants as well for not holding her boss accountable for a "continuous pattern of physical and emotional harassment" the suit claimed they knew was going on.
Further, Logan claimed that after she complained to higher-ups, Liu exacted retribution on her, making her workplace more unpleasant by giving her jobs that were more difficult because of her pregnancy.
For example, the suit claimed Liu forced the young employee to do more arduous "scrubbing jobs."
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A Panda Express representative recently told The New York Post that Liu wasn’t fired from the company, but transferred to another Panda Express location in New York City.
Logan claimed she was eventually fired by Panda Express last December, four months prior to giving birth to her baby boy.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Panda Express for comment on the lawsuit.