A registered nurse who says she suffered anxiety from seeing many patients die during the coronavirus pandemic has agreed to let an arbitrator rather than a jury decide her allegations that she was forced to quit her job at St. Francis Medical Center in 2022 because the Lynwood hospital did not adequately accommodate her requests for a new assignment.
On Thursday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Crowley put plaintiff Iris Villalta’s lawsuit on hold pending the outcome of the binding proceedings and scheduled a status conference for Feb. 26, 2025.
Villalta filed her suit Sept. 28 and an amended version on Nov. 27, alleging wrongful constructive termination, retaliation, disability discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination and retaliation, failure to engage in the interactive process and failure to provide reasonable accommodations.
Villalta was hired in August 2009 and in August 2020 the hospital was acquired by Prime Healthcare, the suit states.
During the beginning and height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Villalta was assigned to the hospital’s COVID floor, which had been devoted to stroke patients, the suit stated.
“Like many frontline healthcare workers bearing the brunt of the trauma from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, plaintiff began feeling severe anxiety from being faced with and surrounded by death on a daily basis,” according to the suit, which also states that the plaintiff obtained disability leave in September 2021.
Villalta sought treatment for anxiety and depression and sought either reduced work hours or reassignment to a less stressful position when she returned, but after asking for several clarifications from her doctor regarding her accommodations inquiries, human resources denied her shift reduction request, the suit stated.
In January 2022, the hospital offered Villalta a non-union position with a pay cut that she rejected, and when she was cleared by her doctor to return in March 2022, her health issues returned and she was forced to resign that month due to the hospital’s alleged refusal to reasonable accommodate her, the suit stated.
In their court papers, hospital attorneys stated that Villalta filed her lawsuit in “direct contravention of her contractual obligations under the arbitration agreement” under which she became bound to address disputes as of August 2020.