DEI has been an easy scapegoat for poor government management, unexpected boat-bridge collisions, and unwanted orders to clean out your cubicle. Faced with the door, former in-house attorney David Farkas sued FirstEnergy alleging that they fired him for asking questions about the company’s DEI initiatives. As it turns out, the reasons for his dismissal look a little more complicated than that. Law.com has coverage:
A jury in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas found that lawyers for former FirstEnergy senior counsel David Farkas did not show by a preponderance of the evidence that the Akron, Ohio-based utility “intended to retaliate” when it fired him in 2022.
Farkas alleged he was axed in retaliation for having repeatedly expressed concerns about the electric utility’s DEI program, which tied annual executive bonuses to diversity-related metrics.
…
FirstEnergy said Farkas was fired for “non-consensual touching of a female colleague’s rear end,” not over his complaints about the DEI program.
FirstEnergy’s case was helped by an email from the female colleague to Farkas that read, ‘”Dude, do no smack me on the butt again. Not cool.”‘ While the unwanted contact happened four years earlier, FirstEnergy was not made aware of it at the time. They only found out about it because she mentioned it years later after Farkas accused her of discriminating against him. Harassing a company for their diversity metrics only to get fired for cause because you grab-assed a member of a protected class is one hell of a “This You?” moment.
The New Way Litigators Handle Depositions Applies AI Every Step Of The Way
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Couple takeaways here: Don’t go out of your way to manage if you aren’t a manager, keep your hands to yourself, and always establish a paper trail.
Attorney Who Claimed Utility Fired Him for Objecting to DEI Program Loses Jury Trial [Law.com]
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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.