{"id":21895,"date":"2024-05-24T02:24:39","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T02:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2024\/05\/23\/carson-group-responds-to-gulick-lawsuit-denies-wrongful-firing\/"},"modified":"2024-05-24T02:24:39","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T02:24:39","slug":"carson-group-responds-to-gulick-lawsuit-denies-wrongful-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2024\/05\/24\/carson-group-responds-to-gulick-lawsuit-denies-wrongful-firing\/","title":{"rendered":"Carson Group Responds to Gulick Lawsuit, Denies Wrongful Firing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/feeds.feedblitz.com\/-\/897462224\/0\/thinkadvisor\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.thinkadvisor.com\/contrib\/content\/uploads\/sites\/415\/2024\/04\/Burt_White_Mary-Kate-Gulick_640x640.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.thinkadvisor.com\/contrib\/content\/uploads\/sites\/415\/2024\/04\/Burt_White_Mary-Kate-Gulick_640x640.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"the-advisor bullet-summary\">\n<h3>What You Need to Know<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Former Chief Marketing Officer Mary Kate Gulick sued the firm, saying it fired her after she complained about its handling of a sexual assault report.<\/li>\n<li>Carson group says it didn&#8217;t act with malice or indifference to Gulick&#8217;s rights.<\/li>\n<li>The firm says that Microsoft Teams messages from now-CEO Burt White included in the lawsuit are written documents that speak for themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"first-para\"><span>Carson Group responded Thursday to a lawsuit by former Chief Marketing Officer Mary Kate Gulick, defending itself against allegations that the firm fired her after she complained about its \u201ctoxic\u201d culture and handling of an alleged sexual assault of a conference attendee by an employee.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The firm denied that it unlawfully discriminated and retaliated against Gulick and wrongly fired her in violation of various federal and state laws. <\/span><span>But it also admitted to certain facts outlined in Gulick\u2019s lawsuit, while disputing many of the <\/span><span>key allegations made in the case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Among specific points, Carson denied that its executives subjected Gulick to demeaning comments about her inability to \u201cget over\u201d a Carson employee\u2019s alleged sexual assault&nbsp;of an attendee at a&nbsp;2022 conference, and that it fired her because she didn\u2019t seem happy or to be \u201chaving fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Carson also denied that the former CMO\u2019s sex was a motivating factor in her firing and that she was subjected to discrimination and escalating harassment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In addition, the firm denied Gulick\u2019s contentions that she has suffered damages, including mental and emotional distress, fear, anguish, humiliation, embarrassment, lost enjoyment of life and lost earnings due to its actions \u2014 and that she was fired for her disability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Carson contends it\u2019s not responsible for damages because it didn\u2019t act with malice, intent, willfulness or reckless indifference to Gulick\u2019s rights, and because its alleged conduct \u201cwas not outrageous,\u201d its response says. The firm asked the judge to dismiss the complaint.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>See: <\/i><\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2024\/04\/24\/timeline-carson-group-lawsuit-over-handling-of-sexual-assault\/\"><b><i>Timeline of the Carson Group Lawsuit<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe were not surprised by Carson Group\u2019s answer,\u201d Omaha attorney Tom Freeman, who represents Gulick in the case, told ThinkAdvisor by email. \u201cMary Kate has spent her career advocating for women in finance. We feel honored to fight alongside her in this lawsuit against Carson Group. As this is pending litigation, we feel further comment would be inappropriate at this time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What follows are summaries of some key issues and events tied to the reported sexual assault, as well as to Gulick\u2019s career at the firm, which Carson Group discusses in its <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/images.thinkadvisor.com\/contrib\/content\/uploads\/documents\/415\/Carson-Response-5-23-2024.pdf\"><span>answer to the complaint<\/span><\/a><span>.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The Alleged Sexual Assault<\/h2>\n<p><span>In late 2022, when Gulick represented Carson Group at an industry conference, which appears to be Carson Excell, she alleges that an employee of Carson Group sexually assaulted an attendee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Carson Group admits in its response that \u201can attendee at the conference alleged&nbsp; unwelcome\/non-consensual sexual conduct with a Carson non-managerial employee (who denied the accusation).\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The firm also says that Gulick, who had a leadership role in organizing the conference, \u201cwas initially made aware\u201d of the allegations by a Carson executive.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Later, Gulick called Kelsey Ruwe, Carson Group\u2019s then-chief of staff and human resources leader, to inform her of the alleged sexual assault. A week after the conference, Gulick was told that an investigation \u201cwas ongoing and that it would be handled consistent with [the firm\u2019s] written policies,\u201d Carson Group\u2019s response states.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In early November 2022, Gulick asserts that she met with Ruwe, who told her \u201cshe disagreed with the decision Carson Group had made not to fire the alleged assailant, but as the decision had been made by Ron Carson himself, she had to support it.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What You Need to Know Former Chief Marketing Officer Mary Kate Gulick sued the firm, saying it fired her after she complained about its handling of a sexual assault report. Carson group says it&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[1],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/carson-group-responds-to-gulick-lawsuit-denies-wrongful-firing.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}