A career in the fast-paced banking and financial industry can be gratifying. Unfortunately, even after the # MeToo movement took off, sexual harassment remains depressingly common in this field, adversely affecting many workers from entry-level employees to managers and directors. This harassment runs the gamut from verbal harassment to inappropriate gestures to quid pro quo harassment to physical harassment to sexual assault. Whatever the specifics of your situation, if you have experienced harassment in your financial place of employment, do not wait to protect yourself. Instead, contact a New York sexual harassment lawyer right away to discuss your options.
One financial employer currently facing allegations that it tolerated and enabled a “pervasive culture of sexual harassment and gender discrimination” is Citigroup.
The employee who sued, A.L., worked in Citigroup’s Global Equities Markets Division, having risen from “the most junior team member of the Electronic Sales Trading desk” in 2007 to managing director in 2021.
The director’s lawsuit alleged that a senior executive sexually assaulted her on the night of the company holiday party in 2007. The woman alleged that she reported the assault to her direct supervisor, but that the employer took no action against the harasser. To the contrary, according to the lawsuit, the woman’s supervisor made jokes about A.L.’s “interaction” with the executive.
The director’s complaint laid out “other instances of abuse between 2013 and 2022 that gave rise” to her legal action. This abuse allegedly included things like a supervisor telling A.L. before a presentation to “wear a cute outfit” to keep the attendees interested, being coerced into going to a Miami strip club during a client event, and male directors making sexual comments about her breasts.
The lawsuit also alleged that, at some point, A.L. entered into a coerced relationship with M.S., another managing director. After A.L. ended the forced relationship in October 2022, M.S. allegedly sent her “a barrage of text messages with explicit threats, including threats to kill her, harm her family, sabotage her career, and reduce her compensation.”
The woman’s case included claims under Title VII and the Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law.
The court, in response to a defense motion for summary judgment, said that the woman’s Title VII claim could continue. Although some of the unlawfull acts A.L. alleged dated back more than a decade and Title VII requires New York plaintiffs to file an administrative claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 300 days, a legal concept called the “continuing violation doctrine,” which plaintiffs can use to “revive untimely claims so long as all acts which constitute the claim are part of the same unlawful employment practice and at least one act falls within the time period,” potentially applied to A.L.’s case, allowing her to continue pursuit of recovery.
While the director’s GMVPL case against Citigroup did not survive, a similarly situated employee would likely fare better today. A.L. had to proceed under the 2000 version of the GMVPL because her case included alleged acts that predated 2022. That law only allowed victims to sue individual defendants for a crime of violence motivated by gender.
The Scope of the GMVPL Today
In 2022, the City Council amended the GMVPL, recognizing that victims could pursue claims against any party “who commits, directs, enables, participates in, or conspires in the commission of a crime of violence motivated by gender.” As the court explained, that amendment had the impact of expanding the GMVPL’s reach to include entity defendants and claims based on an entity’s “constituted enabling, participating in, or conspiring to commit” a crime of gender motivated violence.
In other words, a victim who today alleges -- as A.L. did -- that her employer “should be held responsible for creating and fostering a work environment where such behaviors were encouraged through the company’s repeated dismissal of sexual assault complaints and jokes about incidents of sexual assault,” could seek accountability from her employer. A.L., restricted by the parameters of the old version of the law, could not.
Stopping an Invasive Disclosure Demand
More recently, A.L. scored another victory in the ongoing case. As part of pretrial discovery in the case, her employer had sought disclosure of any past or current romantic relationships A.L. had with any current or former Citigroup employees.
The court concluded that Citigroup was not entitled to this information. As the judge noted, Federal Rule of Evidence 412 “generally prohibits the admission of evidence of prior sexual behavior or sexual predisposition in cases involving alleged sexual misconduct. The court went on to say that, even if the information was potentially admissible, “the probative value of permitting such discovery is heavily outweighed by the intrusive nature of the Bank’s request and the potential chilling effect it could have on others bringing forward sexual harassment claims.”
Invasive, personal, potentially humiliating disclosure requests are one of the risks of seeking justice for sexual harassment. One of the strongest ways to protect yourself from requests that are more likely to embarrass you than to reveal information relevant to the case is by having an experienced advocate who will fight for your rights... and your privacy. When you need legal counsel for a sexual harassment or sexual assault case, look to the knowledgeable sexual harassment attorneys at Phillips & Associates, PLLC. Our team has decades of combined experience in these matters, so we can provide advocacy that is both powerful and effective and thoughtful and sensitive to your situation. To learn more, contact us online or call (866) 229-9441 to schedule a free, confidential consultation today.