Two former employees of Yolo Hospice have filed a civil lawsuit, alleging they were wrongfully terminated, harassed and defamed by members of the nonprofit organization that provides medical and support services to patients facing a terminal illness.
Jody Norton, Yolo Hospice’s former director of patient care services, and Piper Berge, the onetime manager of information technology, “both were subjected to hostility, vitriol and retaliation for standing up” to Craig Dresang, the organization’s executive director, “and not acting like ‘traditional’ female subordinates as Dresang expected,” says their attorney, Mary-Alice Coleman.
In addition to Dresang, Yolo Hospice board of directors president Tom Frankel and board member Emily Murdock are named as defendants in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Yolo Superior Court.
Yolo Hospice officials declined to address the specifics of the lawsuit when reached for comment Thursday.
“The organization has been squarely focused on Yolo Hospice’s core issues, which are the outstanding care of our terminally ill patients and the compassionate support of their families,” Dresang said in an emailed statement to The Enterprise. “We appreciate inquiries about our employment actions; however, because of well-established privacy rights we cannot and will not publicly respond to confidential personnel issues.”
Dresang also noted Yolo Hospice’s work to improve services for veterans and their families, as well as high ranking nationally in quality of care scores.
The lawsuit claims that Dresang, who assumed the executive director’s post in October 2014, sought marketing, personnel and volunteer reforms that Norton repeatedly informed him were potential violations of California’s anti-enticement statutes, hospice regulations and federal patient privacy laws.
These included suggestions that Yolo Hospice dispatch nurses to “patrol” local hospitals to solicit referrals, establish an office at a local skilled-nursing facility and distribute gift bags and lunches to “outside members” in order to facilitate patient referrals, according to the lawsuit.
Dresang also “demanded that the Yolo Hospice standard protocols for training and orienting program volunteers not be imposed before permitting his paramour to become a Yolo Hospice volunteer,” responding with “hostility and anger” when Norton resisted, the lawsuit says.
Norton’s 19-year employment with Yolo Hospice was “abruptly terminated” on Jan. 14, 2015, according to the lawsuit, which also claims Norton was met with discrimination when taking time off work for a rare edema condition.
Berge, Norton’s fellow plaintiff, alleges she became the target of Dresang’s “intense anger and hostility” the day after Norton’s firing when she refused to grant Dresang’s girlfriend access to the Yolo Hospice computer network and email system.
Berge was terminated from Yolo Hospice on Jan. 30, 2015, several days after she sought a medical leave for stress and anxiety, the lawsuit says.
The document also alleges that defendants Frankel and Murdock spread “false and defamatory” information about the reasons for Norton and Berge’s firings, “including but not limited to an allegation that plaintiff Norton and plaintiff Berge were having a sexual relationship with each other at the office, including engaging in sexual acts on the property of Yolo Hospice. This allegation is patently false.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for sex discrimination and harassment, disability discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, defamation and violation of privacy rights.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene