This branch office of the state Department of Rehabilitative Services in Parkersburg is where Julie Stoner alleges her former counselor, Donald Howerton, engaged in lewd and suggestive conduct while helping her find a new career. (Photo by Lawrence Smith)
PARKERSBURG – A Wood County woman is seeking a seven-figure judgment from the state of West Virginia for emotional distress her former rehabilitation counselor is alleged to have inflicted on her.
The state Department of Education and the Arts, and Division of Rehabilitation Services are named as co-defendants in lawsuit filed in Wood Circuit Court by Julie Stoner. In her complaint filed on March 3 with the assistance of James I. Stealey, with the Parkersburg law firm of Goldenberg, Goldenberg and Stealey, Stoner, 38, alleges former DRS counselor Donald G. Howerton, made sexual advances and innuendos on her during a five-month period when she was undergoing rehabilitation and counseling.
Howerton is also named as a co-defendant in Stoner’s lawsuit
According to court records, Stoner, a Parkersburg resident, began experiencing back problems in 2007 that threatened her ability to work in her chosen occupation. That occupation is not stated in court records.
However, she has referred to DRS for vocational rehabilitation and job counseling “for the purpose of setting goals, making plans, and determining what jobs [she] might be able to perform or to be treated and/or rehabilitated to perform in view of her medical condition and physical limitations.” Records show in August 2007, Stoner began counseling with Howerton at DRS’ office in Parkersburg.
Though her suit does not specify when, Stoner alleges that well into their counseling sessions, “Howerton became more and more personal in his questioning.” Those questions included ones about “her family, her marriage, and other personal things that were troubling her at the time, which were totally unrelated to the issues of vocational rehabilitation and job counseling.”
Specifically, Stoner alleges Howerton asked her about her sex life, and how long it’d been since she had an orgasm. Howerton is said to have told Stoner that “if in her sex life she didn’t have a lot of orgasms, it could cause stress to build up inside her and that it would not be healthy for her.”
According to Stoner, Howerton’s “lewd and suggestive conduct and behavior continued,” and he insisted that she meet with him more than once a week. The lewd and suggestive conduct occurred when Howerton asked Stoner to practice relaxation techniques.
In one instance, Stoner alleges when Howerton asked her to close her eyes, breathe deeply and imagine she was in a “‘safe place,’” she opened her eyes to find him “sitting at this desk with his legs splayed apart, rubbing his genitals and touching himself.” On another occasion, Stoner says Howerton stood behind her, pulled her shirt up with one hand touching her back asking where the pain was “while at the same time, his legs would be located on either side of her body and he would on occasion be touching himself.”
In addition to her back, Stoner alleges Howerton would repeatedly touch her “neck, shoulders and buttocks.”
Eventually, due to the “stress and anguish” caused by Howerton’s conduct, Stoner in January 2008 reported him to DRS officials. However, Stoner alleges DRS “seemed more interested in pressuring [her] to continue receiving services from the agency lest she be disqualified from receiving certain benefits, and less interested in properly investigating [her] allegations.”
In her suit, Stoner makes claims against the defendants for assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress. She alleges that as a result of Howerton’s conduct she has suffered not only “extreme emotional distress, mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment loss of personal dignity and physical and mental pain and suffering,” but also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The trauma she suffered at Howerton’s hands, Stoner alleges, resulted in “memories from abuse and neglect from her childhood” resurfacing. As a consequence, she says she is “extremely fearful of men and finds any interaction with men, either, personal or public, extremely distressing, fearful and frightening.”
Along with interest and court costs, Stoner is asking for damages in the amount of $1 million, the limit of the state’s liability insurance policy.
The case has been assigned to Judge J.D. Beane.
Wood Circuit Court case number: 09-C-101