In a vividly worded lawsuit, a finance manager fired by a New Jersey dealership is accusing her former employer of maintaining a hostile work environment and discriminating based on gender and race.
In the suit filed May 19 in Bergen County Superior Court, Isabelle Berrios, who is Hispanic, describes an “all-boys club” at the dealership, where “male employees shared common interests in drug use, discriminatory language and fraudulent activities” and where, “from upper management down, there is zero commitment to anti-discrimination in the workplace.”
According to the Ramsey Auto Group website, the company, based in Ramsey, has 11 brands at seven locations in northern New Jersey.
The suit doesn’t identify at which of those dealerships Berrios worked. She alleges in the suit a wide range of improprieties, including management’s failure to punish her finance department white male counterpart for forging customer signatures; coming to work and using a company vehicle under the influence of drugs; and structuring leases “to take money from the front of the deal to increase his compensation” and, thus, shortchange salespeople on their commissions.
It also claims the male co-worker defrauded customers by signing them up for upgraded etching they hadn’t ordered and improperly took spiffs to which Berrios was entitled.
The suit describes the co-worker as “a disruptive whirlwind in the workplace,” adding that Berrios “never imagined that male management would go out of their way to protect the male co-worker and would instead turn on her.”
It claims Berrios was called “an aggressive Latina” and a “loud Latina” for frequently complaining about legal violations and fraudulent activities. It also alleges managers told her “all Latina women just want money,” mocked her accent, told her that as a woman she should “stay in her lane,” called Berrios and two other female employees an obscenity and used the N-word to describe an African American employee.
She “was also referred to as a ‘Karen,’ which is a derogatory term for a woman who complains,” the suit alleges.
According to the suit, Berrios had more than 15 years of experience when the company hired her in September and was a “hard-working, conscientious employee striving to provide ethical and competent service.”
When she was hired, it says, there was “an utter lack of internal controls (in the finance department) resulting in basic paperwork not being obtained for deals.” Berrios then tried to implement ethics and proper procedures in the department, the suit said.
The company gave Berrios no reason for her firing in February, according to the suit.
It seeks compensatory and punitive damages for discrimination, retaliation and violation of New Jersey’s whistleblower law from the dealership group and Berrios’ former general sales manager and general manager.
Automotive News provided a dealership group official with a copy of the suit at his request, but he has not responded to questions. As of publication, the dealership group had not filed an answer to the complaint.
Berrios’ lawyer declined to discuss the case.