Taking on a nation

Claiming they were sexually harassed and abused while working at a tribal casino, a group of California women are suing. There's only one problem: As part of a sovereign Indian nation, the casino is exempt from civil U.S. law.

By Peter Byrne

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Jan. 13, 2006 | When the stately doors of Thunder Valley Casino first swung open, says Elizabeth Ward, an energetic mother of two, working there was "all fun and games." Ward put in 10-hour days as the casino's beverage supervisor. She worked six days a week, helping to hire, train and oversee 264 bartenders, cocktail waitresses and bar-backs, including many people she knew from around town. Her mother, Cheryl Dalton, worked in the casino's marketing department.

Located a short drive from Sacramento, Calif., Thunder Valley Casino is owned by the United Auburn Indian Community, a small tribe of about 250 members who had been living in poverty on a three-acre reservation until Station Casinos of Las Vegas lent it a couple hundred million bucks to buy 50 acres of wetlands and sponsor a casino. The tribe owns the casino and gets a cut of the take, but the boys from Vegas paid for it, built it and control its operations. It was designed to resemble a Tuscan villa, although ended up looking like a Costco.

The $215 million casino went live in 2003 with nearly 2,000 employees, more than 2,700 video-slot machines, 98 gaming tables, a fancy steakhouse, a 500-seat buffet room, a Starbucks and a Fatburger. One of Ward's jobs was to oversee the girls on the casino floor, which involved getting them fitted in black go-go boots with 2-inch soles and 4-inch heels, faux-leather black halters, and short-shorts with a metal ring hanging off an oversize zipper.

"They paraded in front of some of the upper management and a few gentlemen from Las Vegas," says Ward. "That's when the measurements came into play: The men decided which girls would work the casino floor, and which girls got to work the Falls Bar."

The Falls Bar is the sensual epicenter of the casino. The walls around it are fashioned from alternating panels of stone, sheets of water encased in glass, and sheer white curtains. Patrons sprawl on leather divans as barely attired waitresses serve them cocktails. "The girls chosen for the Falls Bar were delighted," says Ward. "Those who didn't make it were devastated." For one thing, when high rollers request the exclusive services of a cocktail waitress, the plum assignments are reserved for members of the Falls Bar crew, who attend to the big spenders in a private salon.

But not all of the Falls Bar women would remain delighted with their position on the pedestal -- or with many other aspects of life at the casino. In a civil lawsuit filed in 2005 with the Placer County Superior Court, Dalton, Ward and five other women -- all former employees of Thunder Valley Casino -- allege gender and age discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and violation of state and federal labor codes by casino management. A casino hostess, Sundi Lyons, claims she was raped by one of the Thunder Valley managers.

The casino and tribe responded in a legal brief that the case should be dismissed because the tribe is immune from civil lawsuits and its "sovereign immunity extends to the casino because it is legally inseparable from the tribe."

The lawsuit alleges that what started out as an exciting place to work quickly turned tawdry and mean. And the entire case lifts the curtain on the increasingly controversial relationship between U.S. citizens employed by Indian casinos -- most of them non-Indian -- and the sovereignty of Native American governments, which are immune from many state and federal laws. The women involved in the lawsuit had no idea that when they went to work at Thunder Valley, they signed away many of the protections other working people in this country take for granted.

Ward, who now owns a maternity clothing store with her mother, has strong feelings about what happened. "Every person that took a job in that casino did so with the best intention of making a career and supporting her family," she says. "But people are being treated like crap and spit out." Her eyes blaze. "You think that anywhere you work, there are laws protecting you, that you have rights. But I took a job inside my hometown, and to find out that I am not protected is appalling. I pay my taxes, and then to turn around and tell me that a person can have terrible things happen to them and there is no recourse? That doesn't fly with me."

Next page: The women saw the casino turning into a meat market, and not just because of the customers