Secretary's suit says she was the only staffer who could handle the managing partner's vulgarity
A fired legal secretary claims in a sexual harassment lawsuit against Arnstein & Lehr that the firm’s former managing partner talked about his sex life and required her to inject him in the buttocks with a shot of vitamin B-12.
The suit by Dasschinka Storani says the firm wrongly accused her of claiming compensation for unworked hours and fired her in August 2013 in retaliation for her complaints, the Daily Business Review (sub. req.) reports. Storani says the firm didn’t account for hours worked at home when it claimed $27,000 in stolen time.
Storani worked in the firm’s Fort Lauderdale office. Her Dec. 27 suit says then-managing partner Alan Kipnis required her to be available to assist him 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. If she did not respond to texts or emails sent in the middle of the night, Kipnis would try to get her fired the next day, Storani alleges.
The suit claims Kipnis made inappropriate comments, including:
• “Your husband is a lucky guy. I bet you still give him blow jobs.”
• “If I was 30 years younger, what I would do to you.”
• “I’ll know when I lost enough weight when I can see my penis.”
Kipnis preferred young and attractive staffers, the suit says, a fact Storani was supposed to remember when filling in as office administrator and interviewing prospective employees.
“The only staff member that could handle Mr. Kipnis was Mrs. Storani, despite his constant vulgarity, profanity, and abusive behavior,” the suit claims.
Arnstein & Lehr chairman Jeff Shapiro denied the allegations in an interview with the Daily Business Review and promised a vigorous fight. “We did an investigation way back when—this goes back some time ago—and we found there was no basis for any liability,” he said.
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