Former Nemours nurse practitioner alleges age discrimination against hospital, then boss, suit says

A former Nemours pediatric nurse practitioner alleges in a lawsuit she was fired from her job because her boss thought she was "too old" and he was uninterested in accommodating her disability. 

Joan Blair, who had worked at Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children for 28 years until April 2017, claims she experienced age, gender and disability discrimination by her then boss Dr. Harry Chugani.

She filed the lawsuit against The Nemours Foundation on Oct. 19 in U.S. District Court for Delaware. 

Nancy D'Argenio, a spokeswoman for Nemours, said in an email that Chugani is no longer a Nemours employee. Hospital officials declined to comment for the story. 

Chugani could not be reached for comment. 

Blair, age 64, said in the lawsuit that she began experiencing trouble at work a year and a half ago when Chugani became her new supervisor. The then-chief of neurology was hired at the end of 2015 and Blair was assigned to be his new pediatric nurse practitioner.

Until that point, Blair had received positive peer performance evaluations, the lawsuit said. 

"From the beginning of their working relationship, Chugani made it known that he did not wish to work with Blair," the lawsuit said. Blair claims her boss often yelled and belittled her, sometimes in front of other coworkers. 

In addition to caring for patients, Blair became responsible for creating a new epilepsy surgery program, which Chugani would oversee. Although Chugani told her to cut down on the number of patients she saw, Blair still believed she had the workload of at least two people.

In June of 2016, Chugani told Blair he no longer wanted to work with her and he was going to hire another person for the position, the lawsuit said. He said the main reason for this decision was that "Blair was not immediately available when he needed her for something."

Blair claims in the lawsuit that Chugani hired a women who was much younger than her and had "no epilepsy experience, no neurology experience and minimal pediatric experience."

Blair was instructed to teach the new employee "everything she needed to know for the position," the lawsuit said. 

Although this new employee faced similar workload issues, Chugani was "eager to help and adapt for" her, Blair claims in the lawsuit. 

Employees also witnessed "flirtatious behavior" between the new employee and Chugani, the lawsuit stated. 

Blair said in the lawsuit Chugani wanted to force her out because of her disability, in addition to her age.

She suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2011, resulting in her having issues with concentration. Blair's doctor recommended she have her own office because of this, the lawsuit said.

Chugani told Blair she was not going to get her own office. Instead, she could work in an office with three other people.

"When Blair asked how that would be a solution, Chugani replied that he did not know, and that it was not his problem," the lawsuit said.

After she complained about no longer being accommodated for her disability, she was then "retaliated against and terminated from her employment," the lawsuit said.

In November 2016, Blair received a 30-day performance improvement plan, which was aimed to help her improve her productivity and overall as a nurse practitioner, the lawsuit said.

Although Chugani had previously instructed Blair to cut down on her workload, the performance improvement plan instructed her to see more patients yet decrease the number of hours she was working, the lawsuit claimed. 

"The inconsistencies in this PIP reinforce the conclusion that it was simply a pretextual means to justify Blair's impending termination," the lawsuit said.

On April 5, 2017, Blair met with Terri Hoopes, a human resources employee, and Aaron Carpenter, her nursing boss. Both Hoopes and Carpenter had previously given Blair the performance improvement plan that fall. 

At this meeting, Hoopes told Blair she was fired for violating her improvement plan, the lawsuit said.

The violation was that a patient had to wait an hour to be seen. Blair claimed she was with another patient at the time, but "the argument was to no avail," the lawsuit said.

Blair is seeking compensation for loss of pay; past and future economic loss; past, present and future benefits and other economic losses; emotional pain and suffering; and mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment and personal indignity, the lawsuit said. 

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Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 324-2386 or mnewman@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @MereNewman.