A Rancho Dominguez plumbing company Thursday agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former company office assistant who alleged she was wrongfully fired in 2020 for taking fewer than three weeks of leave to care for two brothers ill with COVID-19, both of whom died.
Plaintiff Mariana Lopez’s case was resolved during a mandatory settlement conference between the parties that was overseen by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Malcolm Mackey. The judge canceled the jury trial that was scheduled to begin Monday.
Lopez alleged that RS Plumbing Solutions Inc. violated the California Family Rights Act. According to her suit, Lopez informed her company on Christmas Day 2020 that her brother, Rene, was severely ill and hospitalized with COVID-19.
A week later, Lopez contacted management again to let them know her second brother, Rangel, had been admitted to the hospital due to COVID-19 and both hospitalized siblings were being intubated, the suit stated. She subsequently asked the RS owner for time off to take care of her siblings and both he and her supervisor consented, according to the suit.
Lopez’s brother Rene died Jan. 10, 2021, as did her sibling Rangel five days later, the suit states. But when Lopez tried to return to work on Jan. 19, 2021, her supervisor told her that her position was “no longer available,” according to the suit.
“Baffled, plaintiff requested a formal termination letter detailing the conversation she had with (her supervisor),” the suit states.
In his court papers, an RS Plumbing attorney states that a steady downturn in the firm’s service department where Lopez worked began in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Lopez was warned in October of that year that her job could be eliminated and the company did just that in January 2021, according to the RS Plumbing lawyer’s court papers, which further state that the plaintiff’s old position was never refilled.