At Dave Ramsey’s Company, Some Sex Outside Marriage Was OK, Court Documents Show

In mid-August, a federal judge ruled that redacted copies of the documents could be filed without seal.

In one case described in a deposition with Armando Lopez, head of human resources at Ramsey Solutions, the boyfriend of an employee was seen coming out of her apartment “in boxer shorts and a blanket to walk the dog” early on a weekend morning. Another employee, who lived in the same complex, saw the boyfriend and reported the incident to his boss. That led to the employee with the boyfriend being confronted by her boss and later being fired, according to O’Connor’s lawyers.

This incident was not considered gossip — also banned by Ramsey — said Lopez. “He went to leadership, he did not go to subordinates or peers,” Lopez said of the employee who reported the incident.

In his deposition, Lopez described another Ramsey employee who got married and then told her boss she was several months pregnant. She was fired as well. In all, more than a dozen Ramsey employees were let go for violating righteous living policies.

“We suspected she had violated company policy, but we didn’t know it until that moment,” Lopez said in the deposition.

The company does not consider all sex acts outside of marriage to be unrighteous. While intercourse outside of marriage is cause for dismissal, oral sex is not, said Ramsey and other leaders in the depositions.

“Our operating board chose sexual intercourse outside of marriage as the line at which a person must leave and the assumption is termination at that point,” longtime Ramsey board member and Human Resources Committee Chair Jack Galloway said at an August 2021 deposition. “Things short of that are more case by case and more at least open for discussion.”

Ramsey Solutions leaders admitted in a deposition that the company’s “righteous living” rules did not bar premarital sex in writing. While the rules are sometimes described as drawn from biblical standards, several company leaders were not able to cite any Bible verses to support their views on marriage and sex.

In his emails and depositions, Ramsey expresses both Christian concern and contempt for his employees and their families.

After O’Connor emailed her boss to ask about taking maternity leave, Ramsey told other leaders to assure O’Connor that the company would support her.

“Love her,” he wrote to other leaders. “Tell her we will work this out with her next week but she will be loved and cared for.”

But he and other leaders agreed O’Connor’s days at Ramsey were done. One leader called O’Connor “classless” for sending an email rather than talking to her boss in person.