TL;DR A 57-year-old Black woman is suing EY for race/gender/age discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and failure to accommodate physical disability (among other things) after she suffered a work-related injury that led to a stroke. She also names two supervisors in the lawsuit and claims she was wrongfully terminated in January 2022.
In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles superior court just before the new year, a woman once employed in Core Business Services at EY is suing the firm, CBRE, and various affiliated persons like managers and supervisors for a whole grab bag of things from race/sex discrimination to retaliation, wrongful termination, harassment, and failure to accommodate physical disability after she suffered a stroke in 2017.
Specifically, these ten things:
- (1) Race/Gender Discrimination- (Violation of California Gov. Code §12941 et seq)
- (2) Retaliation in Violation of FEHA
- (3) Retaliation in Violation of LaborCode § 1102.5 et seq.
- (4) Harassment-Violation of Gov.Code §12940(k) et seq.
- (5) Failure to Take All Reasonable Steps Necessary to Prevent Discrimination from Occurring (California Government Code §12940(k))
- (6) Wrongful Termination/Constructive Termination in violation of Public Policy and FEHA
- (7) Age Discrimination (Gov. Code§12940)
- (8) Violation of Business &Professions Code §17200 et seq.
- (9) Physical Disability Discrimination (California Gov. Code §12940(a) etseq.);
- (10) Failure To Make Reasonable Accommodation For Physical Disability (California Gov. Code §12940(m));
The plaintiff is a 57-year-old African American female who, according to her LinkedIn, had been with EY since January 1999. EY and CBRE have some arrangement for workplace services I’m not entirely clear on, if someone could do me a solid and enlighten me it would be appreciated.
The lawsuit says plaintiff Davanne McCrady “was acting as a loyal and honest employee, who acting out of integrity and values, “blew the whistle” on defendants discrimination and harassment of employees, fraudulent misconduct, fraud on consumers, safety violations and violations of California Labor law.” She alleges her managers and supervisors, “including but not limited to Bryan Curelle and Jamre Walls, in their capacity as supervisors and managing agents of defendants, routinely harassed, retaliated against and discriminated against” her based on her “race, gender, sex and age based characteristics, and based upon age and physical disability.”
In 2017, McCrady suffered a “work related injury, resulting in her suffering a stroke.” She took a month of medical leave and returned to work with “residual permanent medical conditions” which were accommodated from September 2017-January 2021, according to the complaint. But then…
Plaintiff’s managers and direct supervisors advised Plaintiff they would no longer make reasonable accommodations for her medical disabilities, and began harassing and discriminating against Plaintiff based on Plaintiff’s age and physical disability. This included directly advising Plaintiff on multiple occasions that she was ‘too old’ and ‘too sick’ to continue working in her position.
The complaint accuses managers/supervisors Bryan Curelle and Jamre Walls of making disparaging comments such as “repeatedly advising Plaintiff that her job duties should include ‘cleaning tasks’ and that ‘she should be comfortable with such work because she is African American’ and also because she is female.”
Starting around January 2021, managers and direct supervisors advised Plaintiff that they “would no longer make reasonable accommodations for her medical disabilities and began harassing and discriminating against Plaintiff based on Plaintiff’s age and physical disability.” Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that they directly told Plaintiff that she was “too old” and “too sick” to continue working.
And:
“Derogatory comments directed at Plaintiff related to Plaintiff’s characteristics as an African American female”
“Calling Plaintiff an ‘incompetent woman'”
“Repeatedly making obscene, lewd, and derogatory comments about the anatomy of female employees”
In January 2021 she complained “to corporate agents and officers, including but not limited to corporate officers and executives, concerning the unlawful harassment, retaliation and discrimination” directed at her. According to the complaint, the defendants “intentionally ignored” her complaints and “undertook no efforts to prevent further and continuing discrimination and harassment directed at her in the workplace.
She names Bryan and Jamre again and suggests they conspired to make her do things she shouldn’t have been doing:
Furthermore, between January, 2021 and January 3, 2022, Plaintiff’s managers and supervisors, including but not limited to Bryan Curelle and Jamre Walls, in their capacity as managing agents of defendants, retaliated against Plaintiff for complaining about the harassment and discrimination by demoting Plaintiff and forcing Plaintiff to perform unsafe tasks outside of her job description, and in disregard for her physical disabilities, solely to harm Plaintiff.
This went on for a year until her employment was terminated on January 3, 2022. She alleges this was done “without cause or justification” and in retaliation for her complaints about harassment, discrimination, and unlawful pay practices in the workplace.
Full complaint for your reading pleasure:
According to the innanet she has a history of suing large companies. Pay day babay.
She’s been there 23 years, so who are these other companies she’s sued?
I believe it. I was a non-traditional student in my late-30s. During my master’s program, I interviewed with all the large firms, including EY. During the EY interview, the partner I interviewed with implied that I would probably not be able to deal with people who were younger than me being my manager. I was floored. I have had managers of all ages in my life, and never thought once about age as competence. I had been warned there was age discrimination and that there was no way I’d get a position by several people, but I couldn’t believe she had the unmitigated gall to actually say something like that in an interview. All the large accounting firms have major age discrimination for entry level positions (ie if you’re older than 25 and coming from some other industry watch out). They do not want you and it doesn’t matter how much you network or how good your grades are (I had a 4.0 and I’m really laid back, get along well with everyone). I don’t get it. But whatever, I got work with a smaller firm and wound up learning a lot more way faster than I probably ever would have working for these unethical hack shops. I’ve seen some of the work these larger firms do, and no wonder they wind up in trouble with the state board. Heh. Anyway, the work-life balance in a smaller firm is much better and I the only way I’d work for these jokers is if they paid me a million dollars a year.