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A judge ruled that the employee is entitled to sue the dealership for being fired as retaliation, but not for discrimination
6 hours ago
- Content from the finance manager’s wife was shared with bosses at the Lexus dealership.
- The man was told he could no longer be employed as others didn’t want to work with him.
- A federal judge ruled that he can sue the dealership over being fired for “retaliatory reasons”.
Plenty of industries have boomed in the post-COVID world, perhaps none more so than the world of homemade adult content. But for one Lexus dealership employee, this surge led to trouble in March 2022, when he was fired after a subordinate discovered his wife’s adult content online and shared it with others at the dealership. Now, a federal judge has ruled that the former employee can move forward with legal action against the dealer.
A legal filing reveals that used car finance manager Russ Kirby had worked at Sewell Lexus in Dallas, Texas, for a decade before getting the axe. A fellow dealer employee discovered racy accounts run by Kirby’s wife on Instagram, Twitter, OnlyFans, and PornHub, and proceeded to take screenshots of them and share them with other employees and managers.
Fired Over “Wife’s Content”
Not long after the screenshots made their rounds, Kirby was called in to meet with the general manager of the dealer and the executive vice president. In the meeting, he was told managers were aware of his “wife’s content” and couldn’t have him “in an environment where people don’t want to work with” him. And just like that, Kirby’s decade-long tenure at the dealership came to an end.
The former Lexus finance manager claims he was forced to tolerate biased statements while working for the dealer, was treated differently than other employees, and was fired for “discriminatory and retaliatory reasons.” He adds white employees were not sacked despite having suggestive and revealing images on their social media accounts. While Kirby is not part of a protected class, he claims associational discrimination because he’s “married to a woman who is black.”
Read: Lexus Lawsuit Says $30 Part Could Have Stopped Water Leaks In Interiors
In his legal challenge, Kirby has successfully made a case for retaliation, with the court agreeing that there’s enough to move forward on that front. However, he has not made a compelling case of discrimination, the court ruled, stating that the content his wife produced cannot be compared with the “suggestive” Halloween costumes and bikini photos shared online by co-workers.
If nothing else, Kirby’s case murky intersection of personal lives, workplace boundaries, and the lingering taboos surrounding adult content. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that what you do outside of work can still have an unfortunate habit of following you into the office, especially when your coworkers are apparently amateur detectives.
