FINRA Panel Awards Brokerage Exectutive $3.9 Million in Employment Dispute
Thomas P. Fitzgerald, the former Chief Operating Officer of H&R Block Financial Advisors, Inc. of Detroit, Michigan, has been awarded $3.9 million in damages based upon the denial of promised employment compensation by a 3-member panel of arbitrators appointed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Fitzgerald claimed the company refused to pay certain compensation and severance benefits it owed him by contract because he refused to sign a two-year non-compete agreement. The contract was presented to Mr. Fitzgerald as a retention package designed to entice him to remain with the company, then known as OLDE Discount Brokerage, Inc., when it was acquired by H&R Block. Several years later, when H&R Block Financial Advisors attempted to get Mr. Fitzgerald to sign a non-compete agreement, he refused, but continued to work for the company for an additional two-and-a-half years under the existing contract before his employment ended. The company then refused to pay his contractual benefits because he would not sign the proposed noncompete agreement.
The arbitration was held in Southfield, Michigan in November 2007. Page Perry partners J. Boyd Page, J. Steven Parker and James A. Nofi represented Mr. Fitzgerald.
