FILE PHOTO
LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Attorneys for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center deny in new court papers that a biracial former hospital nurse was terminated for complaining about discrimination from Filipino supervisors, and say the plaintiff’s claims also belong before an arbitrator rather than a jury.
Camyle Meier’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges gender discrimination, retaliation, breach of contract and the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, failure to prevent harassment, discrimination and/or retaliation, failure to take corrective action and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
You may like: LA nurse alleges discrimination in favor of Filipino coworkers
Meier is half-white and half-Japanese. On Thursday, hospital attorneys filed court papers with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Crowley denying Meier’s allegations and saying that she was terminated for violating the medical center’s time-recording policy. The same lawyers say Meier was newly graduated from school and on her probationary period with Cedars-Sinai at the time.
“Rather than accept responsibility for her own shortcomings and the challenges inherent in transitioning from student to professional in a demanding hospital environment, Meier manufactured a case that disparages the professionalism of a group of seasoned Filipina colleagues, nurses who have dedicated their careers to serving patients and upholding the highest standards of care at the medical center,” the hospital lawyers state in their court papers.
In addition, “setting aside the substantive deficiencies in Meier’s complaint and its meritless claims, this case belongs in arbitration,” according to the defense lawyers’ pleadings, which contend that Meier signed a comprehensive arbitration agreement in which she agreed that all disputes related to her employment would be resolved in binding arbitration.
The hospital attorneys further contend that Meier is trying to evade arbitration by citing the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, which exempts sexual harassment claims from arbitration.
“But the reality is that Meier is merely complaining about personnel management decisions that are part and parcel of any high-performing clinical team,” the hospital lawyers further state in their pleadings.
According to her suit filed May 7, Meier was 5 years old when she first dreamed of having a career in medicine and her goal was solidified by her sister’s contraction of meningitis. Meier’s sibling was treated at Cedars Sinai, so the plaintiff wanted to work there, the suit states.
Meier was close to obtaining her bachelor’s degree in nursing when the hospital offered her a job, a “dream come true” for her, according to the suit.
“However, plaintiff’s dream quickly turned into a nightmare,” the suit states.
Meier was assigned to a section made up almost entirely of Filipino women who had worked together for approximately 12 years and the plaintiff “stood out like a sore thumb,” the suit states. Meier’s Filipino co-workers poured coffee into her backpack her first day and in later days her personal belongings were tampered with, the suit states.
“The message of racial animus was clear,” the suit states. “This was the beginning of plaintiff’s constant harassment, ostracization, abuse, intimidation, marginalization, bullying and undermining by the Filipina staff in her section at work.”
Meier alleges her Filipino colleagues subjected her to falsified complaints and unreasonable scrutiny and assigned her to work with the heaviest and most difficult patients, setting her up to fail by not giving her the proper training.
When Meier resisted actions she believed to be unlawful, she allegedly was retaliated against with more harassment.
She was put on leave two days before her six-month probationary period was up and she was terminated in November 2023, about six months after she started, based upon an allegedly falsified time recording policy violation, which she says was different from the policy given to her previously, the suit states.
Meier maintains the allegedly discriminatory conduct she suffered violated Cedars’ policy that forbids disparate treatment of employees on such bases as race, gender and age, while also banning retaliation against workers
who file good-faith complaints.
A hearing on the hospital’s motion to compel arbitration is scheduled for Dec. 17. (CNS)
