St. Joseph Healthcare faces lawsuit Former employee charges discrimination

Jeffers Ashley of Bangor is suing his former employer, St. Joseph Healthcare, because, he said, the overwhelmingly female Home Health and Hospice Department discriminated against him because he is a male and handicapped.

Ashley, who filed the suit in U.S. District Court, said he left his job as a home health aide scheduler because of anti-male remarks from his female supervisor and her repeated complaints about how he had parked in a handicapped parking spot.

“This continuing barrage of gender-based disparagement by his female supervisor in a female-dominated workplace mounted over time to create an offensive and intimidating work environment for the male Plaintiff, who feared for his job because of the obvious anti-male animus of his supervisor,” the complaint states.

Ashley said that in 1999 he had inquired about a posted job but was told decision-makers were looking for “the right gal.” After complaining to the human resources department, he reported being told “this is an employment-at-will state. People can be let go for any reason.”

He is seeking financial damages plus reimbursement of legal costs.

St. Joseph Healthcare issued a statement this week saying it had not reviewed the complaint. SJH denied Ashley’s allegations when he filed a complaint before the Maine Human Rights Commission last year.

Ashley exercised his right to stop the commission’s investigation and then sue after the commission had his case for more than 180 days without issuing a decision. Patricia Ryan, the commission’s executive director, said that on average it takes 218 days to complete a case and that most cases wait for the administrative decision on the validity of the complaint before proceeding to court.

In its statement, St. Joseph pointed out that none of Ashley’s complaints involved patient safety.

Ashley started working at SJH in 1995 as a home health certified nursing assistant. In 1996 he became a home health aide scheduler, a position he held until his resignation in 2000. In 1998, Ashley had chronic cardiac and orthopedic problems, complicated by obesity. This limited his walking ability and he therefore qualified for a handicapped parking permit. In the suit, he contends that after he began parking in a handicapped spot his supervisor singled him out for adverse treatment.

She would chastise him for his choice of spots, or find him and insist that he park straight in his spot by moving his vehicle an inch or two, according to the suit.

“Mr. Ashley was parking his vehicle correctly within one slot, in a manner no different from similarly situated non-disabled people,” the complaint states. “The director did not similarly single out non-disabled employees.”

In the suit, Ashley alleges that his supervisor treated other males under her supervision more adversely than she treated female employees. The suit notes that of 90 employees just four were men. He alleges she used profanity often and was known to say that “you won’t find a [part of the male genitalia] and a brain in the same body.”