She settled a lawsuit with Boise’s Central District Health. She didn’t get her biggest ask
Three years ago, Cassandra Thompson called 911 over a death threat at Central District Health. The episode traumatized her, according to records the Idaho Statesman obtained last year, and she wound up exhausting her employee family medical leave as she tried to recover.
She asked for extended leave, but was instead “medically laid off.” In response, she sued CDH in U.S. District Court in July, alleging that the agency violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide her with reasonable accommodations, the Statesman previously reported.
Thompson and CDH reached an “amicable” settlement to the lawsuit, CDH spokesperson Maria Ortega told the Statesman by email. The agency last month agreed to pay Thompson about $82,000, though it emphasized that the settlement “is not to be construed as an admission of any liability,” according to a document obtained by the Statesman through a public records request.
Though it agreed to a payout, the agency turned down Thompson’s biggest request, Thompson told the Statesman: She wanted the agency to create an anonymous whistleblower line for employees. Agency officials told her attorney they rejected the change because they already had a process in place, Thompson said.
But Thompson expressed concern that the existing process of voicing concerns to the agency’s board of directors first routes emails to the executive assistant of CDH Director Russ Duke.
“It just breaks my heart because I know that I’m not the only one that has gone through this,” Thompson told the Statesman by phone.
Later, by text message, she added: “I am choosing to have faith in the board of directors that they will see (that) their current process for complaints is not sufficient, as it is not uncommon for CDH employees to prefer to remain anonymous for fear of their livelihood.”
Thompson was one of several CDH employees who went on family medical leave, and then were fired and barred from receiving unemployment benefits, the Statesman reported. In November, the Statesman covered employees’ concerns about a “worse than toxic” culture of retaliation at the district that they said jeopardized the provision of public health services.
Many blamed Human Resources Officer Gary Foote and Stephanie Myers, a division administrator. Myers resigned from the district in mid-September, the Statesman reported.
Thompson felt targeted by CDH leaders
In late 2021, a man who was unhappy with his wife’s care called CDH and threatened to kill a provider, the Statesman previously reported. At the time, Thompson worked with customer service representatives, and in an incident report, she described a CDH worker who took the call nearly in tears and a lobby filled with several clients. CDH officials kept the doors unlocked and the clinic open to the public despite the threat, according to the incident report.
Ortega previously told the Statesman that the doors were closely monitored after an officer told a manager there was no imminent threat, and staff were provided with counseling resources.
Still, the event was “stressful and traumatic” for Thompson, according to her lawsuit. She was afraid people could be killed or injured if a gunman entered the clinic. She suffered from severe anxiety, which her provider later diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Months later, a separate dispute with agency leaders over whether workers could speak Spanish with each other in the workplace triggered Thompson’s PTSD, according to her complaint. She took her remaining family medical leave, which ran out around April.
She asked the agency whether she could start the ADA process to receive reasonable accommodations, and her provider sent the agency an email asking for her medical leave to extend into May. CDH officials asked for some clarification, but provided limited information on the status of her request. Thompson received a termination letter from the agency in May.
Hayat Norimine contributed to this report.
