"One for the laydees" - $200 Million Gender Bias Trial Against Novartis Gets Under Way

The trial of a $200 million gender discrimination class action suit against Swiss-owned drug maker Novartis Pharmaceuticals began Thursday with the defense saying the company "makes no claim that we are perfect" but denying that it underpaid women or intentionally promoted them less frequently than men.

"This isn't a company with a glass ceiling," defense attorney Richard Schnadig told the jury of six women and four men in the closely watched case.

The 5,600-plaintiff class in Velez v. Novartis, 04-cv-9194, claims that Novartis actively discriminated against women by discouraging pregnancies and ignoring complaints of sexual harassment, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

In opening arguments, plaintiffs counsel Katherine Kimpel said that the company fostered a culture that "ignores and undermines legitimate concerns and complaints," including failing to discipline a manager who used derogatory names for women, asked female sales representatives to sit in his lap, and showed them pornographic images.

The suit also alleges that only 30 percent of the company's district managers were women.

While Schnadig did not dispute that more men than women became managers at the company, he said the 14,000-member sales force was evenly split and the disparity among male and female supervisors was "hardly surprising."

The "predominantly male" group of managers was a result of women coming into the profession at a "slower rate" combined with the length of time it took to rise through the ranks to become a manager, Schnadig said.

He also noted that the rigorous training required to become a district manager, including a three-month course at the company's East Hanover, N.J., headquarters, discouraged women from signing up.

The process was "extremely disruptive" for women who were the "principal maternal force in the home" and now had to deal with additional administrative responsibilities, Schnadig said.

To combat the dwindling number of women in supervisory positions, the company implemented a "Women in Leadership" mentoring program consisting of successful female district managers, regional directors and vice presidents who would help "convince reluctant potential managers" to give the job a chance, Schnadig said.

Progress was being made, he urged, although "not overnight."

Kimpel characterized the mentoring program as something that looked good on paper but lacked any real substance, calling it a "PR campaign."

In reality, she said, the company made it difficult for women to become managers as supervisors who evaluated potential candidates had almost unlimited power to rate them "subjectively" rather than on "objective performance."

She pointed to an internal recommendation by a consultant that the company train its managers and supervisors across the board to "foster consistencies" in evaluations and oversight protocols as evidence that Novartis was warned of its discriminatory practices but "never fixed the problems."

Kimpel told the jury that it would hear testimony from plaintiffs who had been denied promotion because they became pregnant or took the full amount of maternity leave to which they were entitled.

One plaintiff was urged to have an abortion while another was asked if she could give the company "two child-free years," said Kimpel, of Sanford Wittels & Heisler in Washington, D.C.

Schnadig took issue with the sincerity of some of the plaintiffs' claims, pointing out that one plaintiff, Holly Waters, was fired for falsifying that she had made a sales call to a doctor, a serious offense.

Finally, he said, some of the plaintiffs did not file any complaints with human resources during or after their time with Novartis, effectively giving the company "no opportunity to rectify what was wrong."

Schnadig, of Vedder Price in Chicago, said the company did follow through on complaints it knew about, citing the firing of the manager who invited employees to sit in his lap and had a penchant for dirty jokes.

The manager was the "poster boy for bad behavior and he got fired," Schnadig said, urging jurors to keep in mind that "some bad experiences" did not represent the company, which like every company "has a few jerks."

Former Novartis sales representative Bernice Dezelan, one of the 14 plaintiffs who are expected to testify in the five-week trial, told the jury she was struggling to play catch-up from the first day she met her all-male team at a Philadelphia diner.

Her teammates, she claimed, did not share key tips about the territory, such as how doctors perceived Novartis' products and what operating hours offices kept.

"I was going to offices that were closed," she said.

But as a "tough little cookie," as she referred to herself, Dezelan was determined to win over her colleagues and proposed a solution to her male team members -- everyone would schedule social events through her and she would keep a calendar so that all would be included.

When her teammates kept finding excuses not to include her at dinner parties, she went to her manager, a woman, who told her to make it work, said Dezelan.

"She was very dismissive ... she didn't address my problem at all," said Dezelan, who worked for Novartis from 2003 to 2006.

The case, before Southern District of New York Judge Colleen McMahon, continues on Monday.

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