The complaint said that in returning to Los Angeles, Carney would go back to the same office in which she worked for the first eight years of her career with Wells Fargo so she could easily cover asset backed finance accounts from there. Carney said she had no choice and was forced to move to the Short Duration Sales Group on January 3.
“The new, hastily-created ‘role’ for Ms. Carney will not only result in markedly diminished visibility within Wells Fargo (and in the financial services industry as a whole) … but will further stymie and impact deleteriously a career trajectory that has already been exceedingly hamstrung over the last decade on the basis of gender,” the complaint said.
Carney's complaint also excoriated the firm’s human resources department for being complicit in allowing misogynistic and racist comments to continue unfettered in the workplace. She alleged senior male executives regularly uttered “comments of a blatantly misogynist nature.”
In one such incident, the complaint said, a female client received a daily electronic message for two straight weeks from a senior male team member calling her a “Fat Pig.” The employee, the suit said, “was on vacation and had set up a “recurring message" with the ‘Fat Pig’ moniker on his computer, which had been intended to be sent to his male sales partner at Wells Fargo,” but was routed to the client.
Carney also alleged that “sexual fraternization and harassment among senior management and subordinates (and others) are both pervasive, and specifically condoned,” noting that there are cases in which senior “male executives have been embroiled in sexual and amorous relationships with younger female employees in their direct reporting lines.”
The complaint further noted that the widespread discrimination perpetrated by Wells Fargo and its senior male managers also crossed racial, cultural and religious lines.
“Senior male company executives had (and still have) a penchant for making homophobic, antisemitic and racist comments,” the suit said, noting that the firm’s CEO, Charles Scharf, received widespread criticism after stating in a memo in June 2020 that “[W]hile it might sound like an excuse, the unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of black talent to recruit from.”
Wells Fargo declined to comment. In an email, Lori Beecher, a bank spokeswoman, said, “We don’t have a comment on this pending litigation.”
Carney’s attorney John Singer, of Singer Deutsch LLP with offices in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco, said, “notwithstanding the proliferation of movements such as #MeToo and others, there are still only a paucity of women in senior leadership roles at most investment banking institutions. At Wells Fargo, in particular, as amplified in Ms. Carney’s complaint, gender discrimination is particularly insidious and an overtly hostile work environs has been cultivated and nurtured with the express imprimatur of the company’s toothless HR department.”
Carney is seeking liquidated damages, punitive damages, injunctive and/or equitable relief, plus interest, as well as attorney’s fees, costs and any other relief deemed appropriate by the court.