TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Doctors, former official awarded $3.5 million from VA

ADVERTISEMENT

TBO.com

Published: July 2, 2009

A jury awarded three doctors and a former administrator from Bay Pines VA Medical Center more than $3.5 million combined in emotional distress damages following a lawsuit they brought against the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, their attorney said today.

The four also received nearly $200,000 combined in lost pay, the attorney said.

"This verdict shines a spotlight on Bay Pines VA and calls out to appropriate federal agencies and Congress to address the persistent problems that exist there," plaintiffs' attorney Joe Magri said in a statement.

The four staffers claimed the hospital's chief of staff and chief of medicine retaliated against them because they filed complaints with the hospital Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.

The lawsuit against the federal Department of Veterans Affairs charged that there was retaliation and a hostile work environment. Two of the women, physicians Claudia G. Cote and Sally B. Zachariah, also charged sex discrimination and one, physician Diane T. Gowski, alleged she was discriminated against because of her Roman Catholic, pro-life views.

Government attorney Scott H. Park had told jurors that the women had problems with reforms instituted at the hospital by Chief of Staff George Van Buskirk, who instituted changes that vastly improved patient care.

Magri said one of the plaintiffs, Roxanne Lainhart Bronner, was administrative officer in the hospital's medicine office and worked under the chief of medicine, who told Bronner that Van Buskirk was against EEOC complaints and would ruin the careers of anyone who filed them.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT