Posted on 04/14/2006 8:23:34 AM PDT by Fawn
STUART — About a month after an emergency room visit found Nina Kennedy had Stage 4 colon and liver cancer, her supervisors from Hilton Grand Vacations called her with more bad news.
"They told her she was fired," West Palm Beach attorney Charles Thomas said Thursday.
Kennedy had been the manager of the Plantation Beach Club on Hutchinson Island for 2 1/2 years when she was terminated in December after working 13 years with the company.
Regional directors told her she had been fired because she violated company policy, she said. But in a lawsuit filed in Martin Circuit Court Thursday, Kennedy and Thomas said the company hid its reasons behind a much stronger motive.
"They knew that she had a potentially terminal illness, she would have been out for a while and they didn't want to deal with it," Thomas said.
Thomas said the way the company fired Kennedy is a violation of the Federal Family Medical Leave Act, a law that protects job security for people who have to take time off work because of serious medical conditions for themselves or immediate family members.
It is the law that allows women to take time off from work after they give birth and lets people care for severely ill family members. It also gives people who are suffering from severe illness up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave without fear of losing their jobs.
Kennedy said she asked Hilton officials to send her the appropriate forms for short-term disability for an entire month before she was terminated. She said they did not provide her with the forms until after she was fired and it was too late to collect.
Hilton spokeswoman Lisa Cole said she had not seen the lawsuit Thursday and that, as a practice, the company cannot comment on open cases.
Kennedy answered the phone at her Jensen Beach home Thursday evening, but said she had just returned from a chemotherapy.
"I'm sorry, I'm really not up to talking right now," she said.
Thomas said it was too early to say how much money he would seek in damages against Hilton.
He said Kennedy should be entitled to all the money she would have made had she been able to eventually return to work, plus any of the medical benefits she was deprived of as a result of her firing.
"It's not like she's going to become a millionaire from this," he said. "But at least this issue will come to light, and she'll be compensated for what she's entitled to."
Sounds bad but only one side of the story is told here.
Oh no, the horrors! If this woman wins, Paris won't be able to afford that HOT doggie collar.
Hilton will not be getting any of my business any time soon. There's this tactless act and then there's Paris Hilton as my sound reasons for boycotting that firm.
It also sounds like somebody at Hilton is brain dead. The bad P/r alone is going to cost a ton. Dumb
Hmmm....may be a pattern here involving Hilton...http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1614944/posts
You're correct about only one side. If the story is basically correct, however, it is negative in more ways than one: it just furnishes (legitimate) ammunition to those economically ignorant who want more regulation like the Family Leave Act.
Yes. Bad people get cancer too.
For all we know, she is a boozer that was barely being kept on the books as it was. She may have gotten drunk and failed to show up for work for a week, ended up in an emergency room where the discovered cancer, and then decided that she could get a free vacation from the deal.
There is no way to know with the information provided.
Is she an illegal Alien?
What is Cardinal Mahony's position of this issue?
If I'm correct,what they did to this woman may well be legal.But it still smells to high Heaven.
Yeah, what's up with the Hiltons these days?
I smell a telephone-number verdict against Hilton. I'd love to be on the jury that gives them the bad news. They are asking for a big puntive damages award, and they will get it.
Where I work a woman has been struggling with cancer for over five years now. The management wisely just threw away the rulebook on sick leave. She works whenever she is able, and takes off when she needs to. We are all happy she is still with us.
Re your post 15, but don't you understand that whenever a story like this is posted, the YES-BUT-THE-OTHER-SIDE-OF-THE-STORY-IS-MISSING crowd is inevitably going to weigh in. You can bank on it. I suppose that they think that this constitutes critical thinking. Tiresome, really damn tiresome.
"it is negative in more ways than one: it just furnishes (legitimate) ammunition to those economically ignorant who want more regulation"
It is not "economically ignorant" to look at situations like this, and the firing of pregnant women (commonplace, in the past), age discrimination, purposeful firing of employees a year before retirement, etc., and realize that the law has to provide recourse against bad acts of employers.
The economic impact of abusive firings is catastrophic on the individuals affected and their families, most people are workers, look at these things, realize that they are just as exposed to it, and RATIONALLY turn to government to protect THEIR OWN economic interests.
Oh, and there's plenty of regulation in the United States, but the unemployment rate is only 4.8% and growth is over 3%, so the complaints that business "can't handle the regulation" are baseless. Business can. And does. And is doing very well. It just doesn't WANT to.
Which is too damned bad, because people have to protect their own interests against abuse by employers.
"YES-BUT-THE-OTHER-SIDE-OF-THE-STORY-IS-MISSING crowd is inevitably going to weigh in. You can bank on it. I suppose that they think that this constitutes critical thinking. Tiresome, really damn tiresome."
Thanks, lol.
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