Law360, Los Angeles (September 16, 2015, 10:31 PM EDT) — A New York state jury on Tuesday awarded three former employees of a
Manhattan medical office nearly $6.2 million in a pregnancy discrimination suit, finding that their pregnancies were a determining factor
in their firings.
Following a monthlong trial, the jury found that G.E.B. Medical Management Inc. and its owner Bruce Paswall fired three administrative
workers, Marlena Santana, Yasminda Davis and Melissa Rodriguez, after learning of their pregnancies.
The jury awarded $1.5 million in compensatory damages to each plaintiff for pain and suffering, a total of $1.5 million in punitive
damages and lost wages of about $180,000 total, according to court documents.
An attorney for the plaintiffs told Law360 on Wednesday that they were satisfied with the result of the long-running litigation.
“This verdict will hopefully send a message to employers that they can’t harass and fire pregnant employees and expect to get away with
it,” said Scott A. Lucas. “This case took eight long years to prosecute, but in the end truth and justice prevailed.”
The plaintiffs filed suit in 2008 alleging that once their employer learned they were pregnant, they were harassed by Paswall and office
manager Peter Ayende, discriminated against and ultimately fired, in violation of New York’s Human Rights Law.
The complaint alleged that Paswall’s actions were influenced by a previous employee who became pregnant with Ayende’s child and later
quit without advance notice. Paswall was reportedly close with Ayende and treated him like a son, and Ayende’s involvement with the
employee went against his wishes, according to the complaint.
In 2006, after Santana informed her superiors that she was pregnant, she was treated with hostility compared with the positive
interactions she experienced previously, according to the complaint.
She was transitioned away from front-office tasks and assigned demeaning tasks such as filling Paswall’s water bottle and fetching
Ayende snacks and soda from the store, the complaint said. Santana said that instead of simply shredding medical records, she spent 10
days redacting names from the records with a permanent marker and then taping the pages together facing each other, according to the
suit.
When she was four months pregnant, her hours were cut in half and a part-time worker was hired to fill that time, the suit said. This
worker, a woman who was not pregnant, was treated like a “front-office queen” and given preferential treatment, according to the
complaint. Santana was fired without plausible explanation in the fall of 2006, the complaint said.
A representative for the defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.
The plaintiffs are represented by Scott A. Lucas of Law Offices of Scott A. Lucas.
G.E.B. Medical is represented by Laurie E. Morrison of the Law Office of Laurie E. Morrison.
The case is Marlena Santana et al. vs. G.E.B. Medical Management et al., case number 305261/2008, in Supreme Court of the State of
New York, County of Bronx.
–Editing by Aaron Pelc.
