'Star Associate' Alleges Breakdown Over Work Conditions, Sues Sedgwick & Partner
A former associate in the New York office of Sedgwick Detert Moran & Arnold has filed a disability discrimination suit against the firm and an a partner he alleges was abusive, contending that he was driven to a breakdown with overwork and mistreatment and then abruptly fired when he had recovered and was ready to return to work.
Above the Law provides a link to the complaint (PDF) filed by Alan Levy filed in New York Supreme Court late last month. It contends that Levy had for years been the “star associate” of the New York office and was the top-billing associate in all of the law firm’s 13 offices when the “ferocious pace” and “abusive conduct” by partner Scott Haworth caused his breakdown.
Responding to a request for comment from the ABA Journal, partner Michael McGeehon, who serves as the firm’s general counsel, states: “Our termination of Mr. Levy was fair and in no way discriminatory. As this matter is now in litigation, we will respond further within that process.”
In addition to billing approximately 3,000 hours annually while working at Sedgwick between September 2005 and December 2008, Levy says in the suit, he fielded unwelcome confidences from Haworth concerning the partner’s personal life and shielded him from potential consequences of some misbehavior.
During the approximately eight months he was away from the firm on medical leave, Levy says, he regularly communicated with the firm’s human resources director and said he intended to return as soon as he could. However, after he contacted her in November 2008 to say that he expected to return to work shortly and potentially seek assignment to the firm’s New Jersey office as an accommodation, so he could be closer to his home, he was called on Dec. 12 by a New York partner and abruptly fired without any severance, the suit says.
Although the partner told him on Dec. 12 that the firm simply didn’t have enough work to keep him busy, the firm subsequently contended he had been fired because he said he would never again work with Haworth—even though Levy never made such a statement, the suit alleges. It contends that this and other attempts by the firm to justify his firing are pretextual and that the actual reason was a fear that he would be less productive due to his perceived disability.
The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for “reputational damage,” lost income and emotional distress, as well as attorney’s fees and costs.
Updated at 2:40 p.m. to include McGeehon comment.
