A 62-year-old former Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. nurse has settled her lawsuit against the health organization in which she alleged that she was subjected to disparate treatment as a Latina and then terminated in 2023 when she complained.
Maria Franco-Fitchett’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleged wrongful termination, age, disability and race discrimination, failure to provide reasonable accommodations and engage in the interactive process, whistleblower retaliation and California Family Rights Act violations. Her attorneys’ settlement pleadings state the accord is “unconditional,” but no terms are divulged.
In their previous court papers, Kaiser attorneys denied Franco-Fitchett’s allegations, said they were barred wholly or in part by the statute of limitations and that the plaintiff “did not provide her employer with an opportunity to correct any alleged violations and provide the appropriate remedy.”
In addition, a Kaiser representative issued a statement shortly after the lawsuit was filed in June 2024, saying Kaiser “has strong policies and procedures in place that specifically prohibit any type of discrimination against our employees, whom we value as our greatest resource.”
According to her lawsuit, Kaiser hired Franco-Fitchett as a licensed vocational nurse in 1999 and she was the oldest person working in her facility when she was terminated at age 60.
In the last few years of her employment, the plaintiff was regularly passed over for training to improve her skills and advance her career that instead went to younger workers, requiring Franco-Fitchett to have to ask other nurses to assist her with job duties for which she had not been schooled, the suit alleged.
“Plaintiff was humiliated as she had to explain to patients that they had to wait because she hadn’t been trained on that device or questioned by coworkers how she didn’t know how to perform that job function,” according to the suit.
A manager told her it would be too expensive to train her on a new outreach program and non-Latino workers were given preferential treatment regarding responsibilities, trainings and the application of various policies and discipline, the suit stated.
Starting in 2021, one of Franco-Fitchett’s supervisors started asking her when she was going to retire, but the plaintiff said she did not wish to quit, the suit stated.
In response, the supervisor gave such responses as “I’m sure there are a lot of things you want to do, but you can’t because you’re at work” or “Oh, it’s because you’re a new grandma,” according to the suit.
In June 2023, Franco-Fitchett provided medical paperwork justifying her request for intermittent leave because of her back pain, but the plaintiff was often told that staff shortages prevented her from taking specific days off, the suit stated.
Franco-Fitchett was terminated in November 2023 and says she was told it was for her violation of a policy not identified in the lawsuit, but the plaintiff believes she lost her job for discriminatory reasons, because she sought to take a medical leave and in retaliation for speaking out, the suit stated.