Angela Brown, a former female employee of Planned Parenthood, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the abortion corporation “intentionally and willfully discriminated” against her by making it difficult for her to take medical leave when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
This alleged discrimination is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Brown first filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on March 28,2017, stating that she was fired from Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky earlier this year after working for them since September of 2013.
The EEOC reviewed her claim, and on August 29, 2017, sent Brown a Notice of Suit Rights. Brown then filed a discrimination complaint on November 27, 2017, in federal court, seeking lost wages, punitive damages and reinstatement to her position.
EEOC Claim Angela Brown against Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Makes Cancer Treatment Difficult to Obtain
According to the document, obtained by Live Action News, in June 2016, Brown gave Planned Parenthood (Defendant) notice of her cervical cancer diagnosis. Due to the illness, she had to undergo several medical treatments, including trips to her doctor and a biopsy which Brown claims she had to receive every three months.
“The Defendant made it difficult for Ms. Brown to take a day off every three (3) months in order to have her biopsy performed,” the lawsuit states, “The Defendant told Ms. Brown to schedule her biopsies for Mondays, as that would make it easier for her to have the day off. The Defendant continued to make it difficult for Ms. Brown to get the day off for her biopsy, even when scheduled on Mondays.”
Planned Parenthood Claims “Pain and Bleeding” Not a “Valid Reason” to Take the Day Off
According to Brown’s claim, she told her employer that she was going to have cancer-related surgery. She says that on the day prior to her scheduled surgery, she received a text from Planned Parenthood denying her the day off without “a valid reason”:
The day before her surgery, Ms. Brown called off of work due to pain and bleeding associated with her disability. The Defendant texted Ms. Brown stating “you will not take off without a valid reason.” Ms. Brown had never called into work prior to this date. When Ms. Brown returned to work after surgery she had restrictions. It was difficult for Ms. Brown to sit due to her disability. If and when Ms. Brown did sit she needed a comfortable chair.
Planned Parenthood Fails to Accommodate a Disability
Brown said she was terminated two weeks later on March 20, 2017, the same day that she attended a staff meeting. Brown states that when she arrived at the staff meeting there were no chairs for her to sit on, so rather than “violate her restrictions in order to carry a chair into the room,” Brown said she opted to just stand.
The lawsuit alleges that “Brown was told that her standing during the staff meeting was ‘intimidating’ and
‘disrespectful’ towards the Vice President.”
Federal lawsuit claims Planned Parenthood violated ADA and FMLA.
Brown alleges that Planned Parenthood violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and discriminated against her by failing to accommodate her condition.
Planned Parenthood’s Violates the Family Medical Leave Act
In addition, Brown’s claim alleges Planned Parenthood also violated the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which, according to the Department of Labor, “entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons….”
Brown’s attorney, Heather Falks, told the Indy Star that Brown’s termination was “retaliation for an employee who was seeking leave.”
According to the lawsuit, Brown “had numerous appointments and the Defendant made it difficult for her to be absent from work in order to attend these appointments; at no point did the Defendant allow Ms. Brown to use FMLA for these appointments. The Defendant terminated Ms. Brown in retaliation for attempting to use FMLA for her surgery and other treatments.”
Multiple Employees File Discrimination Lawsuits Against Planned Parenthood
Falks also went after Planned Parenthood, which masquerades as a health care agency, telling the Indy Star that, “There’s an assumption that when you treat women with those issues, you’d be sympathetic to those issues.”
This is not the first time a Planned Parenthood staffer has alleged discrimination against the abortion corporation.
- In 1999, Texas Business Today detailed a lawsuit filed by Lamarilyn Fadeyi, an African American employee who was fired by Planned Parenthood in Lubbock. Fadeyi alleged she had been “unlawfully discriminated against during her tenure with Planned Parenthood.” The article goes on to describe the allegations made by Fadeyi against Planned Parenthood, “including a claim that the office director gave her and another African American worker an ‘application’ to join the Ku Klux Klan (which was supposed to be a joke).”
- In 1999, Mary Anne Eibest resigned her position as a nurse at an Ohio Planned Parenthood and filed a lawsuit alleging Planned Parenthood “violated the ADA and Ohio handicapped discrimination laws by refusing to offer her the reasonable accommodation of eliminating three hours from the end of her Monday shift.” The court ruled that Eibest failed to offer any material evidence in support of her federal disability discrimination claim.
- In 2004, Life News reported that a group of black and Hispanic employees filed a federal lawsuit alleging that they were treated in a racist manner by officials at a Planned Parenthood in southern California. One complaint from a black employee accused a PPLA official of referring to him with a racial slur.
- In 2005, Planned Parenthood employee Aymara Castro said Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas subjected her to “unlawful sexual harassment, and to disparate terms, conditions and privileges of employment because of her sex.” She won her claim, filed with EEOC, which found Planned Parenthood had “failed to take corrective action to stop the harassment and retaliated against her for engaging in protected activity….”
- In 2008, Planned Parenthood in Iowa fired its Storm Lake manager, Sue Thayer, after she worked there for 17 years. A Des Moines Register report states Thayer “says she was fired for objecting to a controversial teleconferencing system that allows Planned Parenthood doctors in Des Moines to dispense abortion pills to patients in rural clinics…. Thayer sued Planned Parenthood of the Heartland in 2011, contending that it routinely over-billed Medicaid….”
- In 2016, Asia Blunt, an African American female who also has a disability as defined under the ADA, received a Notice of Right to Sue Planned Parenthood from the EEOC. She subsequently filed a discrimination lawsuit claiming Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri (PPKM), retaliated against her, “in violation of the ADA on October 1, 2015, by terminating her employment in response to her protected activity, requesting an accommodation for her disability.” She believed the termination was “motivated by her race” and claimed she “witnessed numerous instances of discriminatory and disparate treatment toward other African American employees, including in hiring, discipline, and termination.”
- Earlier this year, a Los Angeles Superior Court complaint made by Mark Dawson, who worked for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA), alleged he was fired in 2016 for complaining that one of the organization’s executives benefitted financially and had a conflict-of-interest because of an arrangement PPLA had with her husband’s mail-order company. Dawson was fired on June 20, 2016, “apparently based on…trumped-up allegations of performance issues,” the suit states.
Other former staffers have filed claims against Planned Parenthood, accusing the tax funded organization of overbilling abuses and Medicaid fraud.
Planned Parenthood receives half a billion dollars a year from taxpayers, and several million dollars come from the federal Title X Family Planning Program. Regulations under Title X specify, “Projects may not discriminate on the basis of disability…facilities must be readily accessible to people with disabilities.”Additionally, despite Planned Parenthood being cited for violating patient privacy and failing to report child sexual abuse, they continue to receive millions annually in taxpayer funds.
