A Texas-based advisor and accountant who was fired by LPL Financial after a TikTok post exposed her alleged racist hiring practices is suing the firm for $95 million, claiming breach of contract.
Eileen Law Cure, now registered with Wealth Management of Kentucky Inc., is seeking $10 million for “damages for her reputation in the financial industry,” $70 million for loss of income and $15 million for “damages associated with professional defamation,” according to the complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Beaumont.
Cure, who operates Premier Wealth & Retirement Management LLC and Cure & Associates, an accounting and financial services firm with offices in Jefferson and Montgomery County, Texas, was thrust into the spotlight last July when a message she wrote on Skype to her office manager after an interview with a black job candidate went viral.
The note, which said, “I specifically said no blacks. I’m not a prejudiced person, but our clients are 90 percent white, and I need to cater to them, so that interview was a complete waste of my time,” was sent to Denise Bradley, a prolific content creator on TikTok who uses the handle auntkaren0 and raises awareness about racism by highlighting racist situations.
Upon hearing about the incident, LPL said it launched an investigation and “following our process for review of advisor conduct, Ms. Cure is no longer a client of the firm.” LPL also said, “We will not tolerate discrimination of any kind in our LPL community.” The separation from the company was effective August 4, 2021.
LPL did not respond to an inquiry seeking comment on the lawsuit.
Cure argued that LPL had not conducted an investigation, as the firm claimed, and she was wrongfully let go because the hiring process she was undertaking involved Cure & Associates, her separate accounting business, which is not involved in the securities industry. She noted that she was an independent contractor at LPL.
LPL, she said, chose to believe a flawed TikTok video that did not distinguish between her two businesses. It “did not attribute the information to the accounting business, Cure & Associates; did not contain any information related to the employee being replaced, reasons for that employee’s termination; and did not contain any information regarding the qualifications, or lack thereof, of the applicant referenced,” the complaint said.
The complaint noted that Cure, who joined LPL in December 2018, increased her book of business from $40 million to $56 million dollars at Premier Wealth & Retirement Management during the time she was with LPL for two and a half years. When she was fired, the complaint said, LPL not only cut her off from all communication with her clients but “laid claim” to her entire book of business “as though she were an employee who had assembled said book of business during her employment with LPL, rather than an independent contractor who had brought her own book of business with her.”
Cure, in her complaint, also noted that upon termination, LPL flagged her broker license (the Series 7, general securities representative license) for “racism” with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which impeded her negotiations with other firms. “Although this flag is not visible to the public, it is provided to any firm with whom Eileen Cure seeks to register her Series 7 license,” the complaint said. “After taking Eileen Cure’s $56 million book of business from her, LPL also effectively took her Series 7 license, by flagging her license.”