Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this employment discrimination/personal injury case and its proceedings.)
Plaintiff’s Mandatory Settlement Conference Statement
Plaintiff Miranda Church, a Workplace Safety Specialist employed at Kaiser Foundation Hospital, was wrongfully terminated on January 10, 2006, in violation of public policy and Kaiser’s own employment policies. Prior to her termination, Ms. Church was treated in an abusive and discriminatory manner by her quasi-manager, David Black, and was underpaid compared to her male counterpart at another hospital within Kaiser’s Sacramento group. At the time of her termination, Kaiser failed to return personal property to her and, despite further requests, continued to keep her personal property. To compound its injuries to Ms. Church, her former supervisor has made false statements which wrongfully prevented Ms. Church from obtaining subsequent employment.
It is plaintiff’s position that, for statutory and regulatory reasons, Kaiser is obligated to follow its policies in terminating individuals who have otherwise made complaints about Kaiser’s misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance. In Ms. Church’s case, Kaiser failed to properly follow its own policies…miserably. Not only did Kaiser terminate the wrong person involved in the incident described below, but, in terminating Ms. Church, Kaiser failed to:
1) Provide any rule, guideline or policy which would indicate that the act was an offense subject to discipline or termination.
2) Provide any oral warning prior to termination.
3) Provide any written warning prior to termination.
4) Determine the actual severity of the alleged violation, determine any harm to the affected employee, or determine if there was any personal gain sought by Ms. Church.
Subsequently, after Ms. Church made a complaint about her unwarranted termination to the Compliance Hotline, an utterly biased entity pretending to be neutral but controlled by Kaiser, the investigator failed to investigate Ms Church’s actual complaints and, instead, white-washed the incident after a remarkably cursory investigation.
Most importantly, the person who terminated Ms. Church, Richard White, contradicted himself regarding the reason for Ms. Church’s termination. Initially he claimed that the reason was her printing of the document from his computer screen; later he claimed it was because she couldn’t get along with anyone. (See Part 2 of 11.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.