A Filipino former employee of a Van Nuys nursing home has been ordered by a judge to arbitrate her claims that she experienced harassment, discrimination and retaliation from a supervisor who considered her “too old” and “too ethnic” and ignored the plaintiff’s complaints about alleged patient care issues.
On Thursday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen I. Goorvitch granted a motion by attorneys for Windsor Terrace Healthcare Center to compel plaintiff 45-year-old Cynthia Batac to take her case before an arbitrator rather than a jury.
The judge noted that the nursing home produced an arbitration agreement in which Batac’s name was printed and also contained a signature.
“This arbitration agreement was contained within plaintiff’s personnel file, which was made and kept in the normal course of business,” the judge wrote while also noting that Batac did not address the signature issue in a sworn statement in which she stated she did not recall signing the document and that she would not have done so had its contents been explained to her.
“These omissions are telling and the court finds that plaintiff is engaged in gamesmanship in not addressing this point in her declaration,” according to the judge, who placed a stay on the case pending the outcome of the arbitration and scheduled a status conference for March 4.
Batac’s supervisor believed the plaintiff was “too old” and “too ethnic” and when Batac stood up for herself as being overworked, she experienced harassment, discrimination and retaliation, the suit alleges. Batac also believed understaffing at the facility negatively impacted patient care, according to the complaint..
After Batac’s June 2021 firing, she suffered shock and distress that made it hard for her to eat and sleep and caused her to become ill, according to her suit, which further states that she was replaced with a younger person who was not Filipino.