Second former Bardstown Bourbon employee files suit alleging discrimination
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- Sandra Stone filed suit alleging age and gender discrimination on May 6.
- Stone claims she was passed over for a bottling supervisor role in favor of younger male.
- Stone seeks actual, general, compensatory and punitive damages in her lawsuit.
Another female former employee has sued Bardstown Bourbon Company alleging discrimination.
On May 6, Sandra Stone filed lawsuit alleging age and gender discrimination when she was passed over for a bottling supervisor position that was given to a younger male colleague who had not sought the promotion. Stone is represented by the same attorney, James Morris, who filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the company earlier this year on behalf of Sylvia Sanders.
In February, Sanders, a former Bardstown Bourbon vice president of human resources sued the company, alleging a pattern discrimination against female employees. According to Sanders’ suit, BBC executives pushed out at least six female executives despite mandated company policies against gender, age and other forms of discrimination.
Sanders is suing Bardstown Bourbon Company; its then-president Peter Marino; its parent company, Lofted Spirits; former CEO Mark Erwin, who is now CEO of umbrella group Lofted Spirits; Lofted’s owner, Pritzker Private Capital; and Pritzker operating partner Christian Brickman for violating employment laws through gender discrimination, creating a hostile work environment, retaliation, wrongful discharge, defamation of character and other causes.
Marino has since resigned and will leave at the end of June. The Sanders case is ongoing. She also has been sued by another former Bardstown Bourbon Company employee, Herb Heneman, who alleges defamation. Sanders has filed a motion to dismiss the case.
The company has disputed Sanders’ claims and is seeking to have her case dismissed. BBC also has countersued Sanders for disclosures made in the filing.
Bardstown Bourbon Co. did not have an immediate comment on the latest lawsuit.
In the new case, Stone said that until the February lawsuit she did not know of the company’s pattern of discrimination. Stone, who had been a bottling supervisor at Barton — another area distillery owned by a different company — for six years before being hired as a swing-shift distillery supervisor, resigned in December 2022 after she was denied advancement as bottling supervisor and being told she could take a substantial pay cut and demotion to join a new bottling operation as a clerk. She was 67 at the time.
She said that although she thought the circumstances were unfair, she did not realize that BBC had lied to her about not following its own employment policies.
She is seeking actual, general, compensatory and punitive damages.
