Worker Claims Hobby Lobby Snooped

OKLAHOMA CITY (CN) - Hobby Lobby had an injured worker followed by investigators who tried to put a GPS tracking device on his car after the man sought worker's comp for an on-the-job injury, the man claims in court.

Neil Roberts sued Hobby Lobby Stores and RKJ Investigations, on Monday in Oklahoma County Court.

Hobby Lobby became a byword on June 30 this year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, as a closely held corporation, run on religious principles, the store was entitled to religious exemption for the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act.

Roberts says in the lawsuit that Hobby Lobby wasn't very Christian to him.

First, he says, the store assured him he would not have to work Sundays, because of "a strict corporate policy that prohibited work on Sundays."

But soon enough it told him to work Sundays. In fact, Roberts claims, it told him that if he did not unload trucks on Sundays he would be fired. Roberts says he gives the day to the Lord, but he had to work.

One Sunday he injured his lower back and spine unloading trucks, and filed for worker's comp. Whereupon Hobby Lobby "hired multiple private investigators to conduct surveillance on the plaintiff," including photographing him and following him. The shamuses even went to his house to put a GPS tracking device on his car, he says. He claims he confronted the private eye, who told him he was working for Hobby Lobby.

Roberts seeks more than $75,000 in damages for privacy invasion and mental distress, plus punitive damages.

He is represented by Stanley Ward, with Ward & Glass, of Norman, Okla.

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