Pleadings in the federal lawsuit described a pressured “frat-like” sales environment at Larson Power Sports Northwest that involved crude jokes and pranks.

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During his employee orientation at a Fife boat dealer, Gregory Corliss says he was shown a portion of the 1973 film “Deliverance” in which a man is sodomized.

His supervisor told him the same would happen to him “if he didn’t sell boats,” Corliss said.

A jury in Tacoma has awarded Corliss, a former salesman at Larson Power Sports Northwest, $800,000 after finding his managers bullied him relentlessly and exposed him to a sexually hostile work environment, and then fired him when he complained.

The jury in U.S. District Court awarded Gregory Corliss $500,000 in general damages and levied $300,000 in punitive damages against Larson Motors; its founder, Robert Larson Sr.; his son, Robert Larson Jr.; and general manager Edwin Devi, who was Corliss’ supervisor during the almost four months he worked at the dealership in 2013.

The jury last month found for Corliss on claims that Larson operated and condoned a sexually hostile work environment and concluded there was retaliation under both state and federal law.

The jury rejected Corliss’ claims that he was subjected to religious discrimination or a hostile work environmental based on his religion.

Gregory Hendershott, the Seattle attorney who represented the Larsons, wrote in an email that, “given recent publicized events, it is obviously a difficult time to defend harassment lawsuits.”

“We respect the process, but believe the jury got the result badly wrong,” he wrote. “The lawsuit was based on untrue stories that are not credible. The reason Mr. Corliss’s central claims sound unbelievable is that they are not true.”

Hendershott wrote that, “Larson Automotive Group remains committed to being a great employer to all of its employees.”

The lawsuit was filed in 2016 on behalf of Corliss by a Washington bankruptcy trustee after Corliss sought Chapter 7 debt relief a year earlier, according to court records.

The lawsuit alleged that Corliss was mocked by Devi for being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and exposed to repeated sexual innuendo and racial epithets he found offensive.

Corliss, who had moved to Washington from Utah and was in the midst of a divorce, said Devi teased him about being a polygamist and asked him how many wives he was divorcing. The Mormon church officially abandoned the practice of plural marriage in 1890.

Corliss claims Devi nicknamed him “Tommy Boy,” after the ne’er-do-well character played by Chris Farley in the 1995 film of the same name. He also claimed Devi propositioned him daily to perform a sex act, saying he’d just “close his eyes.” Corliss said Devi made these comments and mocked him in front of other employees and customers, according to the lawsuit.

“Defendants were making Plaintiff out to be a failure and a laughing stock … It was demeaning and embarrassing for the Plaintiff to be ridiculed in that way,” according to a trial brief.

The pleadings described a pressured “frat-like” sales environment that involved crude jokes and pranks, including a game in which male workers run around hitting one another in the crotch. Corliss claims he was an unsuspecting target and was injured.

On June 23, 2013, Corliss filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He was fired three days later.

The Larsons, according to the lawsuit, “have allowed and participated in a hostile work environment of sexual innuendoes, sexual harassment, religious discrimination and general debauchery.”

Devi is still an employee at the dealership but did not return messages left at the dealership seeking comment.