A woman has dropped her lawsuit against the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in which she alleged she was wrongfully fired as director of Discovery Gardens Fullerton preschool for complaining about being wrongfully classified as a salaried employee in an alleged ploy to avoid paying her overtime.
Cynthia Greenspan’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleged multiple state Labor Code violations, including failure to pay overtime and all wages due. On Wednesday, Greenspan’s lawyers filed court papers with Judge Maurice Leiter asking that their client’s case be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be refiled.
The court papers do not state if a settlement was reached or if Greenspan was not continuing with the lawsuit for other reasons. However, the attorneys told the judge on Jan. 18 that they were “open” to possible mediation.
In their previous court papers, defense attorneys denied Greenspan’s allegations and cited multiple defenses, including violation of the statute of limitations and that any actions taken against the plaintiff were taken for legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons.
According to Greenspan’s suit, she was hired in January 2022 as director of the preschool and her main job duties included operating, managing and running all aspects of the campus located next to the Emmanuel Episcopal Church of Fullerton. Greenspan alleged that the defendants “engaged in an illegal scheme” of misclassifying her and other employees as salaried personnel in order to deprive them of overtime wages.
From the time of her hiring, Greenspan regularly worked more than eight hours daily and 50 to 60 hours weekly, according to her suit. She also was usually not given meal breaks or rest breaks and those she did manage to take were often interrupted, the suit brought in October 2023 stated.
Greenspan complained to her supervisor, Emmanuel Episcopal Church Pastor Bill Garrison, that she was not being paid enough to be classified as a salaried employee, but Garrison “dismissed plaintiff’s complaints and implied that (she) did not know what she was talking about,” according to the suit, which further stated that she was unable to get in contact with a human resources representative.
Greenspan tried again to get help from Garrison, but the pastor “feigned ignorance about her complaints and attempted to change the subject by yelling at plaintiff for not providing him with an enrollment report,” the suit stated.
A frustrated Greenspan filed a complaint with the state labor commissioner on Aug. 14, but in retaliation for her complaints directly with her employer and also with the state, Garrison fired her in September 2023, according to the suit.