Boston Globe columnist says lawsuit that dates back to 2005 captures the country’s “huge rift between the haves and have-nots.” Appeal of a judgment against the club, and what now totals $1.4M in penalties, was upheld this month, but no payments have yet been made.
Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory highlighted an age discrimination lawsuit involving Willowbend Country Club in Mashpee, Mass. in an October 26 column that was inspired by the current “Occupy Wall Street” movement and that sought to address the reasons for why and when “this country began to completely fall apart” and how “everything became us vs. them, the rich vs. regular people, the 99 against the 1?”
“Why is it that we have an immovable stalemate in Washington, one that has prolonged what is probably the worst economy we will ever know?” McGrory said in the column. “How is it that people began sleeping in Dewey Square? When is it that we stopped even pretending to work things out?
“To that end,” he continued, “consider for a moment the idyllic environs of Willowbend Country Club on Cape Cod, a place of rolling hills, riots of flowers, and subtle stone walls, arguably one of the best manicured golf courses in Massachusetts. It’s also, right now, America in a nutshell.”
McGrory then described the case of Virginia “Ginger” DiIorio, who, after being dismissed from a sales job in 2005 at Willowbend, filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD). DiIorio’s complaint, McGrory said, claimed that she was let go “because she was 59 years old and the club was seeking to project a younger face to potential members and homeowners.” In her complaint, DiIorio, who had worked for the club for 14 years and was also a member, said that she was one of 13 employees fired during a period when the club was financially strapped, and one of 10 among those who were dismissed who were over the age of 50.
The complaint, according to McGrory’s account, said that “a pair of administrative assistants, both in their 50s, were replaced by a 39-year-old former beauty queen” and that “Willowbend then ran a newspaper ad seeking job applicants that declared, ‘Our new era begins now.’ ”
“Most of the dismissed workers signed their options away in exchange for a couple of weeks of severance pay,” McGrory wrote, “but not Ginger DiIorio.” He then reported that after a 12-day hearing with the MCAD in 2009, DiIorio was awarded $200,000 for emotional distress, $359,000 in back pay on her salary and part of her estimated commissions, and another $90,000 in front pay. “This was good,” McGrory wrote, “since DiIorio, then in her 60s, had been unable to find a new job and was in dire need of money.
“So Willowbend sent DiIorio a check with a heartfelt apology, right?” McGrory wrote. “Sure, just like freshmen Republicans in Congress have done everything possible to get this nation out of recession [and] just like Wall Street types have rejected multimillion-dollar bonuses at their bailed-out banks while unemployment is so high.”
Instead, McGrory reported, the club appealed the decision. After two more years, a ruling was finally made this year, during the week of October 17, that affirmed the original order for compensating DiIorio, “with two more years of interest and another $314,000 in legal fees tacked on.”
“The total is [now] about $1.4 million and counting,” McGrory wrote. He contacted DiIorio’s lawyer to see when receipt of the judgment was anticipated, but her attorney, Marc Redlich, said he had received no indication from the club or its owner, Paul Fireman, that any payment was forthcoming.
“I’m concerned that Mr. Fireman and his company will drag Mrs. DiIorio out for another several years,’’ Redlich said. McGrory noted that the club still has the option of appealing at the Superior Court level.
“Fireman was unavailable yesterday afternoon, according to his spokesman, George Regan,” McGrory wrote. “Lawyers at two downtown firms representing him, Goulston & Storrs and Sullivan & Worcester, were Busy & Unable to return my calls.
“Which means we are left where we began, with that huge rift between the haves and the have-nots, and acre upon acre of justifiable anger in between,” McGrory’s column concluded.
In relating the story of DiIorio’s discrimination suit, McGrory cited the “irony” of Fireman, who made his fortune as Chief Executive Officer of the Reebok shoe company, being involved in such a dispute, because of the oft-reported story that he made his initial venture into the golf course ownership business after being denied membership at a club that did not accept Jewish members.
Fireman bought the Willowbend property at a government auction in 1992. He sold it to members in 2007 but then reassumed ownership at the beginning of this year. Fireman also owns Liberty National Golf Club in New Jersey.
Willowbend CC was in the news earlier this year when it opened the club to the public for a limited time in May, as a marketing strategy described by a club spokesperson as “a great way to introduce prospective members to the club, increase exposure [and] get the word out that we have great amenities and it’s a great place to be.” At that time, it was reported that Willowbend’s membership had dropped from a high of 490 in 2003 to around 300 at the start of 2011.
The limited promotion for public play allowed a non-member to play 18 holes for $100, including cart. In addition, the club offered the opportunity to sign up to play the club’s 27-hole layout for a year, for a refundable $3,000 security deposit and no entry fee. Anyone who participated in this offer and then decided to join Willowbend was then eligible to pay the club’s $35,000 initiation fee in two installments, with the second payment due in November 2012.
Willowbend’s entry fee was $150,000 in 2004, but had fallen to $25,000 by 2009.
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