Plaintiff and former employee Sharnett Bush has sued defendants UnitedHealth Group Incorporated and Optum Services, Inc. in Orange County on August 27 for race and disability discrimination reasons. The case removed to federal court on Thursday
The plaintiff, a “thirty-nine year old woman of Jamaican descent,” was previously employed by the defendants, the complaint began. She said her employment as a supervisor began on September 16, 2019, and her hiring manager, April Andrews, and her regional director, Laura Ramirez, along with a woman named Dana Donihue are who Bush identifies as her harassers in the complaint.
A month into her employment, Bush said, she asked Ramirez what was expected of her after she realized the employees she was supervising failed to listen to her. Ramirez responded to Bush, allegedly explaining that she felt challenged by Bush, who was simply on a “trial period” and had nothing expected of her thus far. A month after this, Bush want to her hiring manager, Andrews, to ask further questions. She requested training, which all other supervisors and managing agents had received except her.
By late November of 2019, Bush had received continued resistance from her peers, who “disregarded her role and instructions.” Ramirez had promised to hold a meeting with Bush to discuss and hopefully correct the “lack of respect, resistance, and the uncomfortable work environment” Bush was experiencing. The day after this promise was made, Ramirez emailed Bush her job responsibilities and impending training, which Bush was relieved to receive.
After this, Bush explains in the complaint that she began to notice that “she was looked down upon by her peers because she chose not to engage in office gossip and unprofessional behavior.” What the plaintiff described as a hostile work environment eventually became severely aggressive, and Bush began to believe that Ramirez was secretly communicating with the other employees.
The alleged treatment continued up through January 2020, when Bush went on short-term disability leave for “extreme stress and was diagnosed with chronic migraines.” Upon her return, she was reprimanded and retaliated against by both Ramirez and Andrews.
This continued until the COVID-19 pandemic began. Bush explained her need to work from home, as her child was identified as high-risk. According to Bush, both Ramirez and Andrews began to “harass Bush by leaving her voicemails and stated that she needed to return to the office despite her son being at high-risk.”
Bush eventually began to feel that all she had been experiencing had “severely impacted her health,” which led to her second disability leave. When she returned, she was treated in a more professional manner until she began having health problems in September 2020. Bush “experienced thyroid nodules developing along with GI issue surgeries, a stomach hernia, and even abnormal bleeding… Bush believes that the stress associated with the discrimination worsened these conditions.”
In December 2020, Bush was informed by operations management that she could either find another job within the company within 30 days (in person) or quit. Despite providing doctor’s notes and taking paid time off, court documents say Bush was terminated on February 22, 2021, absent “any interactive process, attempt, at reasonable accommodation and despite her entitlement to CFRA protected leave.”
The complaint cites race discrimination, disability discrimination, failure to engage in the interactive process, provide reasonable accommodation, and take all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination, violation of the California Family Rights Act, retaliation, and lastly wrongful termination in violation of public policy. The plaintiff is seeking actual, consequential, and incidental financial losses, compensatory, general, and punitive damages, and pre-and post-judgment interest.
The plaintiff is represented by Hogie & Campbell, while the defendant is represented by Wilson Turner Kosmo LLP.
