This Bad Boss’ In-Your-Face Fury Sent His Shell-Shocked Nurse to the E.R.
Scott Davidson, a urologist in Grapevine, Texas, stands well over six feet. He’s a muscular man, trained in karate. And when he loomed angrily over Patricia Hahn, as recounted in court records, she feared for her safety.
Dr. Davidson “screamed violently” about the nurse’s supposed incompetence, Ms. Hahn said in court filings, and “punched [toward her] face repeatedly as if he was sparring in one of his martial arts fights.” His fists came within inches of connecting, she testified.
After Ms. Hahn reported his alarming actions — and also called a mental health line in distress — Dr. Davidson confronted her again, she told the court.
“You want to hear yelling?” he asked, standing over her as she cowered back in a chair. “I’ll show you yelling! NOW THIS IS YELLING. THIS IS WHAT REAL YELLING IS!”
Another doctor in the practice dismissed the verbal attacks as “no big deal,” Ms. Hahn said in documents, but the nurse was seriously traumatized. After one bullying incident she had chest pains and was hospitalized for a suspected heart attack.
Who did this to you? a cardiologist asked in concern, according to Ms. Hahn. When she was able to muster an answer, she did so with a new stutter that has dogged her since.
Scott Davidson is our new Bad Boss of the Month.
Ms. Hahn lodged a sex discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and its Texas counterpart, alleging that Dr. Davidson didn’t bully men in the office. North DFW Urology Associates initially put her on administrative leave, but fired her soon afterward on what her lawyers called a pretext — “poor performance.”
Ms. Hahn filed suit in Texas state court against Dr. Davidson and the urology practice. Dr. Davidson told the court that his practice had dealt fairly with someone he called “a fragile human being” — yet a Dallas County jury voted to award Ms. Hahn more than $1 million in damages. Mere minutes before the verdict, Ms. Hahn agreed to settle the case for $440,000, rendering moot an outcome that likely would have been appealed anyhow.
For Ms. Hahn, now 61, the case had been “about standing up to a bully in the workplace,” according to her lawyer, Rogge Dunn of Clouse Dunn LLP. That workplace was described in court documents as “unprofessional and volatile,” since Dr. Davidson was apt to fly into a rage at any moment.
At one point, Ms. Hahn was unable to move a paralyzed patient onto an exam table. Dr. Davidson screamed at her with fists clenched, she said in court documents. The doctor acknowledged that he “raised his voice,” but only after the nurse had a “complete meltdown.”
Dr. Davidson told the court, by way of explaining the incident, that Ms. Hahn “suffers from depression and suicidal tendencies” and incorrectly “believed she had been ‘assaulted.’ ”
Dr. Davidson wasn’t the only issue at North DFW Urology, the jury heard. After a yelling incident, the practice’s office manager told Ms. Hahn she should “quit because they are going to find a way to fire you,” Ms. Hahn said in documents. The doctors would never provide her with a good reference, the manager warned — they had never written a letter of reference for any prior employee.
Another doctor brandished a gun in front of Ms. Hahn, according to her complaint. The gun wasn’t mentioned at trial, but the complaint called it an act of intimidation.
Ms. Hahn began to have “headaches, cold sweats, sleepless nights, and nightmares,” she said in a deposition. According to a psychological evaluation submitted to the court, the workplace hostility appeared to have triggered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD — and it reactivated her “previously dormant” depression. The evaluation recommended five years of psychotherapy.
Ms. Hahn’s chronic stuttering made it difficult to find a job after she was fired, according to court documents. She went back to school to improve her credentials, however, and now is employed again. She testified that she still stutters when she talks about her experience with Dr. Davidson.
Dr. Davidson, meanwhile, left North DFW Urology a year after Ms. Hahn filed her lawsuit; he now works at a different urology practice.
» Read Ms. Hahn’s original complaint (slightly redacted)
» Read a local account of the trial’s outcome
The Employment Law Group® law firm was not involved in Hahn v. Davidson. We select “Bad Boss” cases to illustrate the continuing relevance of employee protection laws for our newsletter’s audience, which includes attorneys and former TELG clients.
During this case, Ms. Hahn was represented by Clouse Dunn LLP.
This Bad Boss Forced a Whistleblower to Sit in a Lobby for Months
Does your manager assign too much work? Troy Miller had the opposite problem: For seven months his boss made him sit on a sofa all day, twiddling his thumbs as puzzled colleagues walked by.
As a superintendent at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, Mr. Miller had overseen the facility’s manufacture of helmets for military use in Afghanistan and Iraq. After investigators began probing the troubled operation, Mr. Miller made his own report of shoddy practices — and urged that production be halted so that no unsafe helmets would go to U.S. troops.
The reaction of his boss, prison warden Jody Upton? He took away Mr. Miller’s computer access, his keys, and his job duties — all to prevent Mr. Miller from obstructing the ongoing investigation, he said. Then the warden gave Mr. Miller, who was not charged with a crime, a series of jobs that were clearly below his pay grade, including wiping tables and shredding paper.
After more than 18 months of these make-work assignments, Warden Upton finally told Mr. Miller to park himself in the lobby of an administrative building — supposedly to cut off communication with the inmates he had overseen.
“I had no duties” besides sitting on a sofa, recalled Mr. Miller in a hearing. A fellow employee said the high-profile exile marked Mr. Miller as “a leper.”
Warden Jody Upton is our new Bad Boss of the Month.
Mr. Miller complained to the government’s Merit Systems Protection Board about the actions of Warden Upton and other bosses. Although an administrative judge called Mr. Miller’s treatment “demoralizing … and extremely inefficient, even wasteful,” the MSPB noted that Warden Upton said he acted at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which was looking into improprieties at Beaumont — including possible wrongdoing by Mr. Miller.
As a result, said the MSPB, Mr. Miller’s do-nothing assignments didn’t qualify as illegal punishment.
In December 2016, a federal appeals court reversed the MSPB and vindicated Mr. Miller, saying that Warden Upton’s story lacked corroboration and, even if true, “affords only minimal support” for the treatment endured by Mr. Miller. It ordered the MSPB to determine a proper remedy for Mr. Miller — although that’s now on hold, as the Justice Department requests a rehearing.
Mr. Miller’s demotion to couch potato was an unlikely outcome for the former U.S. Marine and two-decade veteran of the Federal Bureau of Prisons: Even after the fact, Warden Upton acknowledged him to be a “fantastic” employee — “confident, organized … very on top of things.” His performance rating before the conflict was “Outstanding.”
The trouble started in 2009, about two years after Mr. Miller became a superintendent at Beaumont. The inmate-staffed helmet factory had swung from an $8 million profit to a loss, a change that Mr. Miller blamed on underbilling and mismanagement by Federal Prison Industries, the government-owned corporation that contracts for prison labor and is commonly known as UNICOR.
About two months before he asked for a production halt, Mr. Miller had reported UNICOR’s financial troubles to Warden Upton and others. Now he shifted his focus to safety: He had discovered, he said, that defective Kevlar was being used to make helmets. He suspected “sabotage” on the line.
“The lives of U.S. Marines are more important than anything else,” he wrote in an e-mail to Warden Upton.
Mr. Miller made his discovery the morning after OIG investigators had visited Beaumont; the previous day, he had been ordered not to report to the helmet factory during the visit. According to Warden Upton, the burgeoning OIG probe — which ultimately would lead to the factory’s closing and a $3 million civil settlement — started with a tip from a line manager who had been reported by Mr. Miller for sexual misconduct.
Immediately after hearing Mr. Miller’s helmet-safety concerns, Warden Upton decided to shift him out of the factory, triggering a succession of make-work jobs. The warden was motivated, he said, by a request from an OIG official whom he never named — not by Mr. Miller’s safety warning.
Warden Upton would later learn, he testified, that OIG was considering criminal charges against Mr. Miller and wanted him to be completely isolated from inmates. The warden never cited a specific source for that information, either.
Mr. Miller was never charged criminally, and a civil complaint that named him was dismissed. While the MSPB believed that Warden Upton had acted validly given OIG’s suspicions, the appeals court disagreed: It characterized Mr. Miller as “a valued executive, whose expertise and attention to detail made his product line one of the most successful in the [prison bureau].”
The bottom line for the appeals court: Warden Upton’s unsupported testimony, by itself, couldn’t be the “clear and convincing” evidence that’s required to disprove apparent retaliation under the Whistleblower Protection Act.
“Mr. Miller was repeatedly reassigned,” the court observed, “… and for each step, the Government did not present a single email, memorandum, or personnel action form …. Common sense tells us that these … are the types of personnel actions for which papers would normally attach.”
For his part, Mr. Miller claimed that Warden Upton was moved to retaliate because a potential shutdown would harm the Beaumont prison and deprive inmates of employment. And indeed, the warden himself testified that discipline would be a greater challenge without the factory routine, a fact that caused him “some angst.”
Regardless of the reason, recalled Mr. Miller, “I was done. I’ve never been back in that factory.”
What followed was a downward spiral of job duties. Warden Upton first sent Mr. Miller to oversee inmates as they took meals. But that didn’t last long because, according to the warden, OIG didn’t want Mr. Miller talking to inmates.
Later Mr. Miller was assigned to monitor inmates’ recorded phone calls — until that, too, was nixed by OIG. Mr. Miller did a stint in the prison’s personnel office, where he did “clerical kinds of things, you know, shredding,” explained Warden Upton.
“Is that a waste of his talents?” the warden was asked at a hearing.
“Absolutely,” answered Warden Upton.
Most wasteful, however, was what the MSPB administrative judge called Mr. Miller’s “demoralizing sojourn on the lobby sofa,” which started in 2011. As the couch-sitting wore on, the prison’s safety officer began to worry about the superintendent’s mental state, because virtually no one interacted with him: “He was just kind of like a fixture in the lobby,” he testified.
In the meantime, Warden Upton moved on to a new job in Oklahoma and the helmet factory shut down permanently. Mr. Miller was rescued from the lobby and named as Camp Administrator, then Management Analyst. Although he got an office, the titles meant little: At the end of 2012 the OIG was still investigating and Mr. Miller was pressure-washing the administrative building.
Soon afterward Mr. Miller filed his petition to the MSPB, alleging violations of the Whistleblower Protection Act — a statute that protects federal employees from retaliation for blowing the whistle on fraud, waste, and abuse.
In August 2016, a few months before Mr. Miller’s win at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the OIG finally announced the results of its long-running investigation. The shuttered Beaumont facility had “endemic manufacturing problems” and produced helmets with “numerous defects,” it said. UNICOR staff cheated on inspections, and falsified documents in order to sell rejected helmets to the U.S. military. Mr. Miller was not mentioned.
The OIG said it had no evidence that the faulty helmets caused any deaths or injuries — but the government ended up recalling more than 126,000 units at a cost of more than $19 million.
Earlier in 2016, ArmorSource LLC, an Ohio-based defense contractor that had engaged UNICOR to make helmets at Beaumont, agreed to pay $3 million to settle charges that it had defrauded the government. Part of that settlement will go to the whistleblower who originally accused Mr. Miller of wrongdoing.
» Read the opinion of the Fed Circuit
» Read the Justice Department’s petition for rehearing
The Employment Law Group® law firm was not involved in Miller v. Department of Justice. We select “Bad Boss” cases to illustrate the continuing relevance of employee protection laws for our newsletter’s audience, which includes attorneys and former TELG clients.
During this case, Troy Miller was represented by Dennis L. Friedman, of Philadelphia; and by David L. Wilson, of Stigler, Okla.
This Bad Boss Canned Two High-Achieving Siblings — One of Them “Jersey-Style” at a Parkway Rest Stop
Ramon Cuevas managed residential properties, and he did it well. During his tenure as regional vice president of Wentworth Property Management Corp. (WPM), based in Eatontown, N.J., he received high ratings and expanded his property purview from nine to 24.
WPM also hired Ramon’s brother Jeffrey Cuevas — and Jeffrey quickly thrived, too, rising from portfolio manager to executive director. The siblings were minority success stories: Although the WPM workforce was 20 percent Hispanic, Ramon was the only Hispanic person in upper-level management. Jeffrey hoped to join him there.
Things soured for the Cuevas siblings, according to court documents, when they fell under the supervision of Arthur Bartikofsky, executive vice president of operations at WPM, a part of FirstService Corp., the Canadian property-services giant. Suddenly they found themselves singled out for belittlement as “the two Chihuahuas,” among other slights.
Mr. Bartikofsky set the demeaning tone, according to testimony, with unfunny cracks like the one at a business lunch, where he talked about sending Ramon Cuevas to “join his father” washing dishes in the back of the restaurant. Other executives joined in the mockery — even WPM’s director of human resources.
Both brothers hated the jibes, but tried not to seem thin-skinned. Jeffrey Cuevas finally complained to WPM’s in-house lawyer, however, and Mr. Bartikofsky responded by firing the junior brother. A few weeks later, on New Year’s Day, Mr. Bartikofsky tapped his inner Tony Soprano and asked Ramon Cuevas to meet him at a rest area on the Garden State Parkway.
“Don’t bother sitting down,” said Mr. Bartikofsky. “You’re terminated.” The scene evoked a “Jersey-style” hit, according to one of Mr. Cuevas’ lawyers.
Arthur Bartikofsky is our new Bad Boss of the Month.
The Cuevas brothers filed a complaint claiming discrimination and retaliation, among other things, and a state jury awarded them total damages of $2.5 million — including a combined $1.4 million for emotional distress. In September 2016, the Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed the emotional damages, noting that the Cuevas were subjected to “mental anguish and humiliation … sustained over a long period.”
In court, Ramon and Jeffrey Cuevas described the ethnic comments as relentless — and said that Mr. Bartikofsky was the enabler, “joking” about their heritage at high-level meetings, staff gatherings, and even in front of vendors and contractors. Other WPM executives in attendance, including the company’s president, said nothing or added their own tired tropes.
While executives were listening to music before a conference call began, for instance, someone asked for “something a little more to Ramon’s taste … a little Mariachi or salsa music?” At catered lunches, people would mock-apologize to Ramon for not having burritos or tacos. At a restaurant, someone pointed out a Hispanic bus boy and told Ramon he “could have been your twin.” One day Ramon had to fix a flat tire on his way to work; a colleague suggested he was lucky not to have been mistaken for a “Puerto Rican … trying to steal … the hubcaps.”
Ramon Cuevas testified that he felt “chopped down day by day, month by month” by the stereotypes. And once he was promoted, Jeffrey Cuevas also faced “extremely degrading” treatment at many of the same meetings. One reaction when Jeffrey joined the executive circle: “[W]e’re going to need … another Chihuahua.”
Mr. Bartikofsky already had been calling Ramon Cuevas “Rico Suave,” a reference to the 1990 hit song about a ladies’ man by Ecuadorian rapper Gerardo. Now Mr. Bartikofsky began talking about the “Rico Suave brothers,” while WPM’s HR chief referred to the Cuevas as “the Latin Lovers,” according to testimony — a label that Jeffrey Cuevas found especially “grotesque” coming from a personnel expert.
Another theme: Dangerous Hispanic people. Two WPM property managers testified that Mr. Bartikofsky assured them that Ramon Cuevas could keep them safe in bad neighborhoods because he was “one of them.” Jeffrey Cuevas heard the same notion from another WPM regional vice president, who added that Ramon would “have his switchblade with him, because, of course, he’s Spanish.”
Both brothers hesitated to complain because WPM’s top brass was already aware of the harassment — and indeed, often participated. When Jeffrey Cuevas couldn’t stand it anymore, however, he flagged his discomfort to WPM’s in-house counsel. Just four days later, Mr. Bartikofsky terminated him.
Shocked, Jeffrey Cuevas initially thought the firing was a joke: He had gotten a merit raise just a few weeks earlier. But Mr. Bartikofsky stood firm and ordered Jeffrey to clear out his desk. As he made what he called his “walk of shame” out of the office, Jeffrey Cuevas wondered how to tell his wife that he had lost his job three weeks before Christmas.
WPM replaced Jeffrey Cuevas with a Caucasian male pest-control manager who had no property management experience.
A few weeks later, on New Year’s Day, Ramon Cuevas got an unexpected call from Mr. Bartikofsky, who asked for a meeting at the Cheesequake Service Area on the Garden State Parkway. Although the request was strange, Ramon agreed. When he arrived, Mr. Bartikovsky handed him an envelope and fired him on the spot. Inside the envelope was a letter blaming Ramon for losing accounts — and accusing him of soliciting a kickback, a charge he denied.
At trial, WPM portrayed the unusual firing location as a matter of convenience. One of Mr. Cuevas’ lawyers, however, said WPM wanted to do it “Jersey-style. [The mob] used to issue hits that way. That was the mentality.”
Ramon, like Jeffrey, was replaced by a Caucasian male. Despondent and edgy from a long period of humiliation, he had been fighting with his wife. Now, just a few months after the termination, she filed for divorce. He wound up sleeping on a friend’s sofa.
In appealing the jury’s verdict for emotional damages, WPM argued that any insensitive remarks attributed to Mr. Bartikofsky or other executives were just “teasing,” and that $1.4 million was excessive as a total award. The New Jersey Supreme Court disagreed, saying that as a general matter it won’t second-guess a jury’s reaction …
… to the timbre of a voice that recalls the emotional cuts and slashes felt from racially animated discrimination; to in-depth descriptions of daily workplace humiliations that mentally beat down an employee; and to first-hand accounts of mental anguish — anguish that leads to depression and frays personal relationships.
The awards — $800,000 to Ramon Cuevas and $600,000 to Jeffrey Cuevas — would stand.
» Read the opinion of the N.J. Supreme Court
» Read the original complaint
The Employment Law Group® law firm was not involved in Cuevas v. Wentworth Group. We select “Bad Boss” cases to illustrate the continuing relevance of employee protection laws for our newsletter’s audience, which includes attorneys and former TELG clients.
During this case, Ramon Cuevas and Jeffrey Cuevas were represented by Del Sardo & Montanari, LLC; by Cutolo Mandel LLC; and by John J. Piserchia.
This Bad Boss Tracked Employees on Her Smartphone — and Punished Any Naysayers
Teecha Chamblee never had panic attacks before she was hired as the clinic manager at Inland Behavioral and Health Services (IBHS) — but then, she had never worked for Temetry Lindsey before.
For 30 years now, Ms. Lindsey has run the non-profit community clinic in San Bernardino, Calif. As painted in a series of lawsuits filed by former employees, including Ms. Chamblee, she is a dictatorial CEO who hires family members, charges poor patients too much, permits lavish narcotics handouts, and freezes out — or fires — anyone who crosses her.
According to testimony, Ms. Lindsey tracks employees' movements on her smartphone, to which she has piped video feeds from cameras all over IBHS facilities. She allowed one supervisor to deprive "lazy" clinic employees of desks and chairs, forcing them to kneel as they typed. And she used the non-profit's money to buy herself a BMW X5, ostensibly at the request of her board of directors, a hand-picked group that includes her hairdresser.
Ms. Chamblee said she tried to challenge the worst practices at IBHS, including some evident faking of patient data. But for her troubles — which included a run-in with Ms. Lindsey's disruptive daughter, who was on the non-profit's payroll — she was banished from the executive suite and shut out of key meetings. Ultimately she had no choice but to quit.
"I felt like I was in a cult," Ms. Chamblee said in a deposition. "I don't do cults."
Temetry Lindsey is our latest Bad Boss of the Month.
Ms. Chamblee quickly found another job. In July 2016 a California state jury awarded her $50,000 in damages from IBHS, saying that she was effectively fired for speaking up, and that IBHS acted with "malice, fraud or oppression."
In court documents, Ms. Chamblee described her time at the clinic as "hell." Besides having her first-ever panic attack, she gained a lot of weight under the stress of being shunned by Ms. Lindsey, her direct supervisor.
Among other problems at IBHS, Ms. Chamblee had flagged the clinic's improper practice of including food-stamp payments in its calculation of poor patients' income, which allowed IBHS to charge higher fees. Ms. Lindsey listened to her concern, but replied that nothing would change.
Ms. Chamblee also dealt with issues caused by the IBHS medical director, Donald Underwood, who was hired by Ms. Lindsey despite prior suspensions in five other states for problems including overprescription of narcotics, malpractice, and fraud. In New York, by his own account, he was suspended for allowing his wife, who is not a physician, to implant synthetic fiber in patients' scalps in imitation of "authentic hair."
At IBHS, Ms. Chamblee testified, Dr. Underwood was in heavy demand as the only physician willing to prescribe promethazine with codeine, a narcotic cough syrup that's often mixed with soda and candy to make a street cocktail known as "sizzurp" or "purple drank."
"Most of the patients came to see him," said Ms. Chamblee, "because he — well, you know … he gave out meds."
Other IBHS personnel warned about Dr. Underwood. Tiffany Hill, a physician at the clinic, sent an e-mail to Ms. Lindsey saying that Dr. Underwood’s prescriptions "scared" her, noting that one patient had received scripts for a virtual pharmacy of pills, including 485 hydrocodone, 830 Tramadol, 330 Xanax, and 270 Valium. Dr. Hill and another IBHS employee were fired after making such complaints, and later settled a joint lawsuit they filed against the clinic.
According to Ms. Chamblee, the only survivors at IBHS are those who don’t challenge Ms. Lindsey or her protectees, who include family members and Dr. Underwood. "Whatever she said, goes," said Ms. Chamblee. "Nobody contested or questioned anything, even if they knew better." Behind her back, however, disgruntled workers called her "the blue-eyed devil," Ms. Chamblee testified. (Ms. Lindsey has striking blue eyes.)
Even longtime employees could be targets for the CEO. Barbette "Bobbie" Barton, who was Ms. Lindsey’s personal assistant for 13 years, claimed in court documents that Ms. Lindsey was abusive and threatened to fire her, for instance, if she didn’t get her "a** down to the store to pick up snacks" for a meeting.
Ms. Lindsey also was demeaning of Hispanic people, calling them "wetbacks" and "beaners" in front of Ms. Barton, whose daughter-in-law and grandchildren are Hispanic.
Like Ms. Chamblee, Ms. Barton became hobbled by the stress of working for Ms. Lindsey. She filed a workers' compensation claim to take time off — but when she returned, she said, she was stripped of all duties, moved to a different location, and deprived of a computer and telephone. For several weeks, she could do little more than make copies.
Ms. Barton also filed suit against IBHS, and reached a settlement.
Ms. Chamblee herself was frozen out for a variety of reasons. Ms.Lindsey sent security to confiscate her key to the executive suite, for instance, after she raised concerns that IBHS wasn't complying with state and federal regulations — and that data submitted in applications for government funding didn't match IBHS records.
Ms. Lindsey seemed just as upset, however, when Ms. Chamblee passed along complaints about the workplace antics of Samantha Dotson, the CEO's unruly daughter.
Ms. Dotson reported to Ms. Chamblee, but "came and left whenever she wanted" and dressed and behaved unprofessionally. "She would do little stupid things like take people's lunches, hide people's purses," testified Ms. Chamblee. "She'd throw things across the cubicles. I couldn't go and tell her to stop … because that's the boss' daughter."
One of Ms. Dotson's pranks contributed to a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by another employee, which was resolved out of court.
Ms. Lindsey's mother also worked at IBHS, and the CEO's son became pharmacy supervisor, with access to medications, although former employees have challenged his qualifications in court filings.
Ms. Chamblee finally quit under pressure from her boss, who stopped replying to e-mails and declined to give her work assignments. "I just couldn't take it," said Ms. Chamblee, a mother of three who was seeing a doctor for a worsening health condition. "I don't ever want to see [Ms. Lindsey] again, and even talking about her sometimes makes me sick."
Like many former IBHS employees, Ms. Chamblee was represented in her case by Tristan Pelayes, a local attorney and former deputy sheriff who has been dogged in pursuing Ms. Lindsey.
Mr. Pelayes' next IBHS case, representing Anais Parsaeian, a former nurse at the clinic, may reach trial in 2017. He says he has more lined up after that.
» Read Ms. Chamblee's complaint
The Employment Law Group® law firm was not involved in Chamblee v. Inland Behavioral and Health Services, Inc.. We select "Bad Boss" cases to illustrate the continuing relevance of employee protection laws for our newsletter's audience, which includes attorneys and former TELG clients.
This Bad Boss Fired an Employee for Cursing at a Co-Worker Who Tried to Choke Him
It was James Yang's small habits that triggered Cy Tymony's anger.
Mr. Yang worked near Mr. Tymony on a computer help desk. He chewed ice. He put Coke cans in the shared freezer, where they sometimes burst. He tapped his foot against his own chair. He ate candy during team meetings.
Mr. Tymony, known in the office as a hothead, stewed over such minor annoyances before finally asking his boss, Harry Cometa, to shift Mr. Yang to the far side of the room.
Mr. Cometa spoke with both men, and agreed to separate them. But later that day, when Mr. Yang suggested that Mr. Tymony should be the person to move, Mr. Tymony exploded into violence.
According to court documents, he grabbed Mr. Yang's neck, started to choke him, and threatened to kill him. Mr. Tymony then punched and kicked a cubicle wall until it fell down. Security officials arrived and quickly removed the two men; Mr. Tymony ended up handcuffed to a chair.
Mr. Cometa wasn't in the office at the time, but he listened to the aftermath over an employee's phone. Since both workers were yelling obscenities, Mr. Cometa decided to fire them both. He didn't answer follow-up e-mail or calls from the anguished Mr. Yang, who wanted to explain what happened.
And Mr. Cometa never backed down — not even after getting an official report that caused his HR manager to describe Mr. Yang as "a complete victim."
Harry Cometa is our new Bad Boss of the Month.
After the trauma, Mr. Yang's life fell apart: He lost his career, his apartment, his self-esteem — even a chance at reconnecting with a long-ago love. Ultimately he filed a lawsuit claiming wrongful termination and infliction of emotional distress. Earlier this year, a federal jury found in his favor and awarded him $7.4 million in damages.
At time of the incident, Mr. Yang had been employed for about four years by ActioNet, a company with a help-desk contract for the Federal Aviation Administration in Lawndale, Calif. A dedicated employee, he regularly received raises; his latest came just a month before he was fired.
Mr. Tymony joined the help desk shortly after Mr. Yang. He was an amateur inventor and author of a series of kids books called Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things. His tinkering started early: As a child he had created a device that would shock bullies who menaced him, according to a Los Angeles Times profile.
At work, however, Mr. Tymony sometimes did the menacing himself. A co-worker testified, for instance, that Mr. Tymony became livid when nearby employees "pinged" each other too loudly on an instant-messaging system — so he sent them crudely worded demands to stop.
Another profane showdown came when several co-workers believed Mr. Tymony had been drinking coffee for which they had paid. His angry retort: "I drank my own f***ing coffee." Mr. Tymony reopened the argument at a subsequent department meeting, waving a bag of coffee and proclaiming his innocence.
At other team meetings, according to testimony, Mr. Tymony cursed at Mr. Yang, his peer, for asking "stupid" questions and for eating candy.
"F***, you never stop eating," he shouted after the candy run-in, slamming a wall with his fist. "You don't respect anyone — your co-workers, not even your manager!"
Mr. Yang didn't complain to ActioNet about Mr. Tymony's behavior, he said in court, because he was "afraid" of his co-worker. But another employee sent e-mail to management after the candy outburst, suggesting that Mr. Tymony's rage was undermining a safe work environment.
In early 2012, Mr. Cometa joined ActioNet as a manager for both Mr. Yang and Mr. Tymony. Apparently he was aware of previous troubles: He asked employees to go "easy" on Mr. Tymony, saying that the help-desk worker was "going through family issues."
That summer, however, Mr. Tymony's anger bubbled over again. First, according to testimony, he sent Mr. Cometa an e-mail complaining about Mr. Yang's habits — about his yawning, about his loud chewing noises, and about his exercises, which Mr. Yang performed in a small area by his desk. Mr. Tymony asked that Mr. Yang be moved.
Three days later, Mr. Cometa talked to each man about separating their cubes. Mr. Yang didn't want to move, but Mr. Cometa asked both men to avoid discussing the matter; he would make a decision the next day. Then the manager went home.
Shortly afterward, according to testimony, Mr. Yang overheard Mr. Tymony talking on the phone about a "Korean guy" who is an "a**hole." He approached Mr. Tymony and said that Mr. Tymony — not Mr. Yang — should be the person to move cubicles.
Enraged, Mr. Tymony grabbed Mr. Yang's neck and threatened to "kill" him, according to testimony. Mr. Yang closed his eyes and didn't fight back. Mr. Tymony let go but, still furious, "punched the cubicle in," according to a coworker who quickly called Mr. Cometa.
During that call, Mr. Cometa could hear the two employees yelling "F*** you" at each other in the background. Without knowing any details, he decided to fire them both.
Security officers separated the feuding men and, at Mr. Cometa's request, confiscated their access badges and sent them home. Mr. Yang was crying, he recalled at trial. "I didn't do anything," he remembers insisting.
An upset Mr. Yang called Mr. Cometa the next day, but Mr. Cometa didn't take the call. He also e-mailed Mr. Cometa, pleading his side of the story, but Mr. Cometa just referred him to Human Resources, where no one answered or returned his calls.
FAA agents had conducted interviews for a "spot report" about the fight — a report that prompted ActioNet's HR manager to send an e-mail that said, "it sounds like [Mr. Yang] was a complete victim." Mr. Cometa responded that he was still comfortable with the firing. At trial, he confirmed that he did nothing to investigate the matter. "I didn't need to," he said.
At Mr. Yang's home, meanwhile, a packet arrived with termination papers. It was the final insult, recalled Mr. Yang: "To me this letter was the most cruel letter ever in my life … I mean, this was to me just: We don't care. Go die."
Mr. Yang, then in his forties, had expected to work at the help desk until retirement. After being fired for cause, however, he couldn't find another job and teetered on the edge of homelessness. He was depressed and numb, and had suicidal thoughts.
Just before he was fired, the never-married Mr. Yang had gotten an unexpected call from his "first love," a high-school friend who now wanted to reconnect. He couldn't even face her initially, but after a few weeks he went to visit her. She told him to get a job. By the time of his trial, however, the only job Mr. Yang had secured was as a part-time, minimum-wage caregiver who lived in his patient’s home.
Mr. Tymony, meanwhile, found another computer job soon after being terminated — in a higher position than before.
» Read Mr. Yang’s trial testimony about the effects of his termination — and his lost love
» Read Mr. Yang’s third amended complaint
The Employment Law Group® law firm was not involved in Yang v. ActioNet, Inc.. We select "Bad Boss" cases to illustrate the continuing relevance of employee protection laws for our newsletter's audience, which includes attorneys and former TELG clients.
