The former director of gift giving at USC Arcadia Hospital is suing the facility and his former supervisor, alleging he was given “unethical and illegal orders” in dealing with longtime donors by a supervisor who wanted to replace him with someone Asian like her.
USC Arcadia Hospital is the former Arcadia Methodist Hospital, having been acquired by Keck Medicine of USC in July 2022. The plaintiff, Jay Harvill, is a white male who was named director of gift giving in March 2005 and continued in that role after the changeover.
In his Pasadena Superior Court lawsuit filed Wednesday, Harvill’s allegations include intentional infliction of emotional distress, discrimination, retaliation, harassment, and failure to take all reasonable steps to prevent those conditions. Harvill seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. He also is suing the USC Arcadia Hospital Foundation.
A USC representative issued a statement Thursday regarding Harvill’s suit.
“We are aware of the lawsuit and are reviewing it in detail,” the statement read.
Harvill’s job duties included seeking estate gifts from patients and community residents, cultivating and soliciting of both outright and planned major gifts, managing a portfolio of prospects and administering a donor relations program to foster relationships with major gift donors.
However, in March 2024 a new foundation president arrived who became Harvill’s supervisor and she instituted a “dictatorial type of leadership, chaos and toxic, hostile work environment” that affected the foundation and individuals within it, the suit alleges.
The supervisor asked Harvill to use his close personal relationship and his influence with donors, especially older ones, to convince them to change their planned future donations to irrevocable pledges, actions the plaintiff believed were not only “unethical, unconscionable and illegal” but could also expose the foundation to liability, the suit states.
Harvill told the supervisor he believed abiding by her orders would be committing financial abuse against donors, but she persisted anyway, the suit alleges. In alleged retaliation, Harvill’s boss began to marginalize and humiliate him by blocking his contacts with longtime donors, the suit further states.
The supervisor “simply was making it impossible for plaintiff to continue being productive at his job,” according to the suit, which further states that Harvill was no longer permitted to get help from attorneys on complex planned gifts.
During a closed-door meeting with Harvill in her office, the supervisor said, “You’re a very aggressive man and I feel uncomfortable around you,” the suit states.
Harvill, who left the meeting feeling “terrified,” says he received no help from human resources. Harvill further contends that the supervisor came to the foundation with the mindset that a racial and ethnic shift was occurring in the San Gabriel Valley and that a white male “had no place at the foundation,” the suit states.
“It became very clear to plaintiff that the reason that (his boss) did not want to work with him was not only that he refused to blindly follow her unethical and illegal orders, but also because she wanted to replace him with an Asian-American person,” according to the suit, which further states that Harvill was “constructively terminated” on Feb. 22 because of the alleged intolerable work conditions.
Harvill has experienced lost income and suffered severe, permanent emotional distress, the suit states.
yup that lady thinks she is above the law at the hospital