Wells Fargo Discriminated Against Older Advisor, Suit Claims
A senior advisor says his supervisors sent his clients to a younger advisor and performed other discriminatory acts.
A Wells Fargo advisor is suing the firm for allegedly engaging in a continuous course of discriminatory conduct toward him, which included transferring him to a “less desirable” branch and sending his clients to a younger advisor.
Peter Valdez, a senior financial advisor at Wells Fargo in Dutchess County, New York, filed the suit on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Valdez has been employed by Wells Fargo Advisors as a financial advisor since 2002 in Dutchess County, according to the suit.
The advisor is 64 years old and suffers from disabilities, of which Wells Fargo “is aware,” the suit states, including an epileptic seizure disorder, anxiety and related mental health ailments.
Wells Fargo Advisors, by and through its supervisors, engaged in a “continuous, and continuing, course of discriminatory conduct toward Plaintiff based upon Plaintiffs’ race, gender, disability, religion, national origin and/or ethnicity (Hispanic) and in retaliation for his opposition to discrimination by Defendants, thereby denying him financial benefits, career advancement opportunities, promotional opportunities, income and client assignments,” according to the suit.
According to the suit, Valdez was assigned to the Mid-Hudson market, and his “primary responsibilities as the [advisor] were to work at the branch at least four days a week, attend branch meetings, have coaching sessions with the bankers and to work at a Non-Affluent Wells Fargo Branch in Fishkill, New York one day a week.”
Valdez was transferred to the Hopewell Junction branch around December 2018.
Since about July 2019, the suit continues, Valdez’s supervisor, “Michael Freiheit, Private Wealth Area Manager, was directing customer referrals away from Plaintiff and to Mark Fidelio, who is a younger [advisor].”
On or about Oct. 3, 2019, Freiheit met with Valdez in his Greenwich, Connecticut, office, the suit states, and told Valdez that “Adam Dumoch wanted Plaintiff out of the Hopewell Branch, Plaintiff was too old, and that Adam Dumoch prefers [financial advisor] Mark Fidelio who is younger.”
On Dec. 10, 2019, Valdez was told by manager Freiheit that “referrals were still going to other [advisors] that should have been going to Plaintiff. Those other [advisors] were younger than Plaintiff and also of non-Hispanic descent.”
The suit goes on to state that Valdez’s attempts to resolve the issue with human resources were unsuccessful.
Valdez, according to the suit, “has suffered, and will [continue] to suffer, irreparable injury and monetary damages as a result of Defendant’s discriminatory acts.”
A spokesperson for Wells Fargo Wealth & Investment Management declined to comment on the suit.
Photo: Bloomberg