Opinion ID: 173907
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Branin's Assistant

Text: It was important to Branin that his principal assistant at Bessemer, Alexandra Fuhrmann, join him at Stein Roe. Shortly after Branin informed his staff at Bessemer of his decision to leave the firm, Fuhrmann contacted Stein Roe to seek employment there. Although granted an interview, she was initially told there were no positions available. Three days later, Fuhrmann was nonetheless invited to, and did, attend additional interviews with the president of Stein Roe and others at the company. Her interviews went poorly. Interviewers thought that she had an unfortunate personality, and an overly aggressive demeanor, and that [i]n a vacuum, [Stein Roe] would never hire her. Bessemer I, 427 F.Supp.2d at 389 (internal citations omitted). Nevertheless, on August 2, 2002, Fuhrmann was offered a position as a vice president. The president of Stein Roe explained her hiring as a way to make Branin comfortable and to assist in administrative work. However, it was understood that her primary responsibility would be `to help [Branin] transition as much of his client base to [Stein Roe] as possible,' id. at 394 (quoting Pl.'s Trial Exs. 68, 89) (alteration in original), and that this was part of the reason that Branin had recommended she join Stein Roe, see Pl's Trial Ex. 69. Meanwhile, Bessemer, unaware of Fuhrmann's attempts to join Stein Roe, assigned her increasing responsibility in an effort to retain Branin's clients, including promoting her to senior client account manager with respect to several accounts, and informing several customers that she would be assuming day-to-day responsibility for their accounts. According to one of Fuhrmann's supervisors at Bessemer, partner Paul Barkus, when Fuhrmann subsequently left Bessemer to join Stein Roe, on August 2, 2002, her departure made Bessemer `look[] kind of foolish to the clients.' Bessemer I, 427 F.Supp.2d at 390 (quoting Trial Tr. at 609). And Barkus told Fuhrmann that he `thought the only reason that [Branin] and Stein Roe wanted her to go to Stein Roe was to help [Branin] transfer accounts from Bessemer to Stein Roe.' Id. (quoting Trial Tr. at 594) (alteration in original).