On February 12, 2020, Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti filed a Superior Court complaint on behalf a longtime private mortgage banker at Wells Fargo. Our client – a 15-year veteran and top producer for Wells Fargo in Fairfield County and New York – complained to management and Employee Relations about sexual harassment by his manager against multiple employees whom he supervised, including that the manager inappropriately touched one of those employees on several occasions. Our client alleges that, within weeks of those complaints, he was subjected to a concerted campaign of retaliation and that, when he complained about the retaliation, he was ultimately terminated for demonstrably false reasons. According to Wells Fargo, it fired our client not because of his protected complaints, but because he supplied leftover Wells Fargo promotional bags to his wife for distribution at a conference she was planning. Wells Fargo makes this assertion despite the facts that the bags cost less than one dollar each, that our client honestly reported his use of the bags to the employees in charge of them, and that Wells Fargo had sponsored that same conference the previous year.
The complaint brings legal claims for retaliation, in violation of the Connecticut Fair Employment Practice Act, and negligent supervision of the offending manager, in violation of Connecticut common law. Garrison, Levin-Epstein partners Joe Garrison and Josh Goodbaum are leading the case against Wells Fargo.