LITTLE ROCK — A confidential settlement revealed last week ends 2½ years of litigation between retired advertising executive Gary Heathcott and Little Rock-based marketing firm Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods over the ad agency’s decision to kick him off the premises and terminate his consulting contract.
Heathcott sued in December 2018, and the sides notified Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox on Wednesday they had resolved the litigation, releasing no details beyond the fact that each side would pay its own legal expenses.
The filing comes about a week after Arkansas Business reported a settlement had been reached, and that no one involved in the litigation would answer questions about it.
Heathcott, who now lives in San Antonio, has been an advertising, marketing and public relations professional for more than 40 years and was the founder of Heathcott Associates Inc. Cranford Johnson bought the company in 2014 and kept Heathcott on as a consultant, paying him as much as $234,000 annually, according to his lawsuit.
According to Heathcott’s suit, Cranford Johnson chief Darin Gray kicked him out of the office in September 2017 and barred him from communicating with co-workers.
The ad agency formally terminated his contract in November 2017, alleging that Heathcott had violated company procedures and its employee handbook.
Heathcott noted in the suit that no one had ever complained about him to its human resources department, stating that the company had violated its own procedures regarding the filing and investigation of harassment complaints.
Heathcott further claimed in the suit that someone, possibly Gray, company chairman and chief executive officer, actively solicited women at the company to make complaints of harassment against him, and that employees who refused were subject to retaliatory action including firing.
The company responded to the litigation with a countersuit stating that Heathcott was terminated due to a pattern of abuse, harassment and inappropriate workplace comments that were “sexually inappropriate and harassing.”
The response listed 27 incidents that the company said were inappropriate, humiliating, embarrassing, racist and bullying conduct by Heathcott and provided more than three additional pages describing his behavior toward Cranford Johnson employees and clients.
Heathcott denied those accusations, describing them as “half truths, distortions and outright fabrications.”