The Havre Eagles Club has been ordered by the Montana Human Rights Bureau to pay more than $193,000 to a former employee who said she was sexually harassed by the club manager for more than five years.

The club was also ordered to make sure that the manager is never alone with female employees at the club.

Gregory Hanchett, hearings officer for the state Department of Labor and Industry, wrote in his decision Friday that KayCee Groven had proven that the Eagles had subjected her to a hostile work environment by the actions of her supervisor, Eagles Club manager Tom Farnham.

He further ordered that the Eagles pay Groven for future wages lost because she cannot return to work at the club.

“Ms. Groven and I are pleased with the hearing officer’s decision, ” Groven’s attorney, Phillip Hohenlohe of Helena, said this morning.

Farnham said this morning that he had not yet been officially notified of Hanchett’s order and that he did not know if he would advise the club to appeal the order. Farnham declined further comment.

The Eagles have 14 days to file an appeal to the Human Rights Commission.

Comments from Havre attorney Lindsay Lorang, who represented the Eagles in the complaint, were not available by deadline this morning.

Groven also filed a civil suit in District Court against the Eagles and Farnham, a former Havre City Council member and member of the Hill County Fair Board, at the end of March. Hohenlohe said that the primary reason his client filed that suit was because the Eagles Club and its attorney, Lindsay Lorang of Havre, had argued that the case should not be pursued as a sexual harassment case but rather as a lawsuit.

Hohenlohe said that, at this point, he could not rule out pursuing that lawsuit.

The hearing included testimony from 17 witnesses, including Groven and Farnham.

Hanchett wrote that the testimony Groven gave was “entirely credible” and was supported by other witnesses.

He wrote that Farnham’s testimony was not credible, particularly that he was just joking around during a September 2010 trip to Chinook, about which he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting Groven.

“This testimony is patently false, ” Hanchett wrote. “If he were just joking around, he would never had pled guilty. ”