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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A former Children's Hospital Los Angeles employee dropped his lawsuit alleging he was wrongfully fired in 2020 for reporting that a colleague violated federal law by opening a valve and allowing the refrigerant Freon to be released from an air conditioning unit being repaired.
Lawyers for plaintiff Wisam Khalel filed court papers on Wednesday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Timothy P. Dillon asking that the lawsuit be dismissed. The court papers did not state whether a settlement was reached or if the 50-year-old Khalel was not pursuing the case for other reasons.
In his suit filed Feb. 5, Khalel, of Glendale, said he was hired May 4, 2020, as a refrigeration mechanic and was working with his supervisor and a senior area in July when he was `` shocked'' to see the other mechanic open a valve on the unit, allowing large amounts of Freon to escape.
Freon is an inert gas known as R-12 used in automobile air- conditioning systems. Federal regulations forbid anyone maintaining or servicing any appliances from allowing a refrigerant to be released into the environment, so Khalel immediately expressed his concern to the others, according to the suit.
However, the supervisor allegedly responded, ``Who cares, we need to get the job done.''
A few days later, Khalel reported release of the Freon to the engineering department manager, who seemed upset and told Khalel to keep working, the suit stated.
A few days after Khalel reported the incident, the plaintiff's supervisor and the other mechanic involved in the release confronted the plaintiff at work and from that point on became hostile toward him, the suit stated.
After some weeks of feeling isolated, Khalel approached the engineering department manager and said he wanted to apologize if he had done something wrong in reporting the Freon release, the suit stated. The manager told him to ``just forget about everything and keep working because there is lots of work to be done,'' according to the complaint.
Khalel was given a report in October 2020 stating his probationary job performance was unsatisfactory, which surprised him and prompted him to write a response, the suit stated. But he was fired later that month and believes the true reason was his reporting the alleged illegal release of Freon, according to the suit.
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