A former Lexus dealership employee is celebrating a legal win after he was fired over his wife’s online porn videos. A federal judge ruled that he can take legal action against the dealership for firing him.
Russ Kirby worked as a finance manager for Sewell Lexus in Dallas, Texas, starting in 2012. That changed in March of 2022 when some of his coworkers found his wife’s adult content that she had posted online and began sharing it with each other, according to Automotive News.
According to the Dec. 4 decision, one of Kirby’s subordinates discovered the pornographic postings on Twitter, Instagram, PornHub and Only Fans. Kirby’s wife had used a pseudonym but the subordinate recognized her face from a photo on her husband’s desk, it said.
The subordinate took screenshots and showed them to co-workers and managers, the decision said.
The suit says, Kirby was called in to meet with the dealer’s general manager and vice president. He was told that they were aware of the content his wife makes online and because of that, they couldn’t have him “in an environment where people don’t want to work with him.” He was ultimately fired, which he says was fraudulently done. To make matters worse, Kirby says dealer higher-ups told him to lie about the reason he was fired; he was told to say he was let go because of “a new company structure.”
Kirby doesn’t actually think his firing has anything to do with his wife’s adult content. In the suit, he claims that his firing is retaliation due to him speaking out against alleged discriminatory practices by the dealer such as how the dealer treated employees of color and the need for more diverse hiring practices. One of those discrimination claims Kirby says was against him because he’s married to a Black woman. However, U.S. Chief District Judge David Godbey dismissed that claim and others made against certain dealer employees.
Of course, the dealership denies any wrongdoing. Sewell says that Kirby’s firing had nothing to do with discrimination or retaliation. Despite the fact that dealer employees found and shared Kirby’s wife’s content with each other, Sewell says that Kirby’s wife’s adult content “had become an issue at work” which violated the company’s “standards of professional conduct.”
Now with Kirby getting the go-ahead to take further legal action against Sewell, Judge Godbey says it’ll be up to a trial to determine whether Sewell’s policies apply to Kirby’s wife, which seems like a long shot given she’s not an employee, and whether Kirby himself took part in his wife’s…extracurricular activities.
