Merrill Broker Expects Ruling SoonMerrill Broker Expects Ruling Soon
Hydie Sumner, one of the remaining 50 or so registered reps who sued Merrill Lynch for gender discrimination, is expected to hear a decision from an arbitration panel within the next few weeks. Among remedies to her claims proposed by her lawyers a monetary award being the most obvious choice is one very surprising one: that Sumner be reinstated as a manager at Merrill Lynch. Sumner's attorney, Mary
David A. Gaffen
Hydie Sumner, one of the remaining 50 or so registered reps who sued Merrill Lynch for gender discrimination, is expected to hear a decision from an arbitration panel within the next few weeks.
Among remedies to her claims proposed by her lawyers — a monetary award being the most obvious choice — is one very surprising one: that Sumner be reinstated as a manager at Merrill Lynch.
Sumner's attorney, Mary Stowell, of Stowell & Friedman of Chicago, deems a return to Merrill an unlikely possibility, because Sumner already works for another brokerage firm. “My best guess is that it's unlikely” that the panel would include such a move in a settlement, Stowell says. However, she says, “I don't want to say it's only a legal remedy and nothing else.”
Indeed, Sumner, a rep at Merrill Lynch from 1991 to 1997, has sounded decidedly un-legalistic in her statements about the matter. She declined to comment on the record for this article, but was quoted in the San Antonio Express-News as saying her “experience and knowledge can help make a difference” at Merrill.
Sumner's hearings began in October and continued through December. Final briefs related to the case were due to the arbitration panel in mid-February.
Fewer than 50 cases against Merrill are outstanding from an original 900-member class action suit against the firm. Most of those were settled in the late 1990s; Stowell & Friedman represent the majority of the remaining litigants.
