A woman who once worked for Bellingham-based eXp Realty says the real estate brokerage ended her employment in retaliation for reporting her supervisor’s sexual harassment of another employee.
The woman sued eXp in Whatcom County Superior Court last week, arguing the company said it was eliminating her role, but she believes she was let go for reporting the harassment. The case seeks to release her from a severance agreement she signed agreeing not to sue the company.
The case is just the latest to put eXp — which describes itself as “one of the world’s fastest-growing real estate brokerages” — under scrutiny.
In 2023, five women alleged in lawsuits against eXp that two well-known agents drugged them during company events and that company leaders ignored their complaints. Another suit filed in May alleges a photographer contracted by the company sexually assaulted an eXp agent and the company failed to investigate, The New York Times reported in May.
A separate case, filed in October by shareholders, alleges company executives violated their fiduciary duties by failing to respond to sexual misconduct allegations and by failing to put systems in place for reporting and preventing sexual assault and misconduct at the firm.
Now, former eXp employee Ashley Golladay alleges the company terminated her employment after she reported to then-CEO Jason Gesing in 2021 that her supervisor, David Conord, had sexually harassed another employee.
The case names eXp and unnamed John Does who may have been involved as defendants. The company “is obsessed with growth and being the biggest real estate brokerage at all costs,” said Andrea Hirsch, an attorney representing Golladay, “and some of those costs are turning a blind eye to people that are being hurt.”
In an emailed statement, eXp said it was aware of the lawsuit and “takes these kinds of allegations seriously, but we firmly believe the claims are without merit.”
“The company will respond to the complaint through the appropriate legal channels, and we remain committed to maintaining a respectful and compliant work environment,” the statement said.
Conord did not respond to attempts to reach him Wednesday. The company declined to comment on what role he currently holds at eXp.
Former CEO Gesing declined to comment on the details of the allegations but said that during his time at eXp, he was “committed to creating and sustaining a safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace.”
“I continue to support any process that upholds those essential values and admire those with the courage to speak up as needed in order to safeguard them,” Gesing said in an email.
Attorneys for Golladay, who lives in Texas, say that in the summer of 2021, Conord had a sexual relationship with a subordinate and sent shirtless photos of himself to a separate employee in her early 20s. He sent the woman photos and text messages related to fitness challenges and with sexual undertones, the attorneys said. The shareholder lawsuit makes similar allegations against Conord, claiming he “had been sending sexually explicit pictures to subordinates.”
The woman who received the text messages felt uncomfortable and told Golladay, who later reported the alleged conduct to Gesing, according to her attorneys.
Conord retired from the company and received a compensation package in September 2021 but returned in early 2022, according to the shareholder lawsuit. Soon after his return, Golladay’s attorneys say the company transferred her to another department where she did not want to work and then eliminated her position. Her employment ended in July 2022, and she signed a separation agreement in March 2023.
Golladay’s attorneys allege the company ended her employment in retaliation for reporting the sexual harassment.
The case argues the company violated Washington state law, and Golladay has the right to damages and to be released from the separation and nondisclosure agreement. She signed that agreement “without full knowledge of her legal rights and based on the defendant’s misrepresentation of the grounds for her termination,” the lawsuit said.
“It took a while to put all this together,” said Hirsch, Golladay’s lawyer. At the time, “she didn’t know that’s the real reason why she was being let go.”
