A civil lawsuit against several large oil companies with Houston ties for allegedly failing to act when a female drill rig engineer discovered a spy cam in her room is one step closer to a jury trial.
A Louisiana woman, identified only as 'Jane Doe' is suing Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, BHP Billiton Petroleum and Schlumberger Technology Corporation. During a hearing today, a judge ruled the case for punitive damages against the three companies can move forward, but removed Aramark Services, a company contracted for cleaning on the rig, from the suit.
File: drillship lawsuit_20180219155738
"Jane" had only been working and living on the rig for for three days in August 2015 when she noticed a clothing hook on her door that wasn't there before.
"The rooms are pretty bare and minimum so when you notice something different it sticks out to you," she said in a phone interview with CNN in April 2016.
Days later, the hook was gone and the only other woman working on the ship said she'd seen a similar item in her room.
The women examined the hook and saw it was actually a motion-activated camera with a memory card.
When they uploaded the memory card to a computer, they saw video of the other woman being recorded without her knowledge.
"Jane" says she feared whoever planted the device had already retrieved video of her in her room.
"Every day the anxiety and fear of waking up thinking footage could be online is haunting," she said.
Jane is suing for damages in excess of $1 million, claiming her supervisors and the companies who all had workers on the ship, did not do enough after she reported the hidden camera.
"I wanted it criminally reported, I wanted to be part of the investigation process, I wanted to know what was going on, and honestly I felt like I, from the day that I left that rig, I had zero control,' she said.
The man believed to have planted the spy cam has since been fired. Her attorney says no criminal charges were filed because the FBI told them, it was too late and there was not enough evidence.
The trial is set to start March 19, 2018.