Posted on: Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Ex-Smith Barney broker settles bias suit

By Louise Chu
Associated Press

ATLANTA — A woman whose lawsuit alleged that Smith Barney ignored her complaints of sexual harassment has settled her case.

Susanne Pesterfield, a former broker with the investment firm's Robinson-Humphrey unit in Atlanta, claimed she was sexually harassed, groped and threatened, while working in a male-dominated environment in which men were given better pay and opportunities for advancement.

Pesterfield's attorney, Daniel Klein, said his client settled her case late Friday. An arbitration hearing had been scheduled to begin yesterday.

Terms of the settlement were undisclosed.

Pesterfield, now 35, joined Smith Barney in 1991 and found "an environment hostile to women and in which women weren't given the same opportunities to succeed as men were given," according to the complaint.

She detailed several instances of harassment by male colleagues, including groping, physical threats and men-only trips to strip clubs.

Pesterfield left the company in 1998, after "she was told that if she pursued the claim, she would become an enemy of Smith Barney," Klein said.

Pesterfield's case is the latest in a string of sexual harassment and discrimination claims against New York City-based Smith Barney.

In 1996, three women who worked in the company's Garden City, N.Y., office filed what became known as the "boom boom room" lawsuit. That complaint alleged that sexual pranks and lewd behavior by male employees in a basement room of the office created a hostile working environment for women employees.

It was later expanded into a class action lawsuit to include allegations by 23 female employees across the country, alleging that such behavior was common throughout the firm's network of offices. Pesterfield's was one of more than 1,900 complaints filed against the company as part of the settlement process established by the 1996 case.

Mary Ellen Hillery, a spokeswoman for Smith Barney, declined to comment on details of Pesterfield's case but released the following statement: "Significant diversity initiatives over the past several years have positioned Citigroup among the most progressive employers in the securities industry."

Hillery pointed to honors that named Citigroup, Smith Barney's parent company, as a top company for family-friendly corporate culture by Working Mother magazine and one of the best employers for Hispanic women by LATINAstyle magazine in 2002.