Our law firm has been representing a former employee of Dignity Health in a sex discrimination case in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Arizona.
The case has been going on for quite some time with a likely trial date for this year. In this case, our client is a male who worked in a 5-person lab at Dignity Health in Phoenix. Our client alleges, and the evidence has shown, that his boss was sleeping with a female co-worker, and then keeping her as a lab employee as he fabricated reasons for letting other male lab employees go. Our client was terminated, in favor of the hospital keeping our client’s boss’s girlfriend, even though our client alleges that he and the other men in the lab were significantly more qualified than their boss’s girlfriend.
Eventually, the entire lab disbanded, apparently due to lack of funding, with our client’s ex-boss and his girlfriend as the last employees.
The action that the judge took this week was to warn former OBGYN Department chair at Dignity, Dr. James Balducci, that he must contact our law firm because he ignored a subpoena to appear for a deposition. The judge’s Order states that he’d consider holding the doctor in contempt of court if he fails to promptly contact us to reschedule his deposition.
In addition to Balducci being a no-show for his deposition, Dignity Health was refusing to produce documents relating to the termination of the other lab workers. This week, the judge ORDERED Dignity to provide those records.
Finally, in a common tactic used by company lawyers, Dignity was threatening to send a subpoena to our client’s current employer in Texas, under the guise of needing independent verification of salary, benefits, etc., because somehow the documents we provided and offered to provide just were not sufficient enough. The judge said that Dignity’s lawyer can issue the subpoena, but only if they significantly narrow their request. Either way, it’s certainly the belief of this Houston Employment Lawyer and Employment Lawyer that this is an intimidation move to scare workers from filing lawsuits, lest their new employer discover that they sued their prior employer.
For further information, I can be reached at 713-850-0066 or 305-701-4624, or by email at [email protected]
