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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A former Cedars-Sinai Medical Center employee has tentatively settled a discrimination suit against the hospital in which she alleged she was wrongfully fired in 2022 on a pretext of stealing a Russian tea set.
According to the Los Angeles Superior Court suit, plaintiff Gayane Barsegyan's Armenian ethnicity, her ability to speak Russian and her disability from an off-duty injury made her a target of harassment, which began immediately after she returned from the first of two disability leaves and asked for accommodations.
Barsegyan alleged wrongful termination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment, discrimination, failure to take all steps to prevent discrimination and harassment. On Friday, her attorneys filed court papers notifying Judge Kerry Bensinger of a "conditional" settlement of the case with the expectation a request for dismissal will be filed by Feb. 23. No terms were divulged.
In their court papers, hospital attorneys called the suit "frivolous" and said it was filed to harass their client.
Barsegyan was hired in October 1998 as a lab assistant and at the time of her firing her job was as an emergency department assistant clerk who entered data, administered patient intakes, completed paperwork for transferred patients and answered phones, the suit stated.
She was injured in November 2021 while walking on a sidewalk and was placed on disability leave in early January, the suit stated. She returned in June 2022 and was immediately summoned to an interview by the emergency room's assistant manager, who told the plaintiff she was being investigated concerning the whereabouts of a Russian tea set missing from the dictation room, according to the suit.
The interview was "exceptionally long, aggressive and hostile," lasting almost two hours, causing the plaintiff severe emotional distress and leaving her "extremely frightened," the suit filed in September 2022 stated.
The only evidence management had for their theft accusation was a grainy video showing her leaving the dictation room with a bag in which she carried her lunch throughout her employment, the suit stated.
Cedars suspended Barsegyan, who said she felt so ill after the interview her doctor placed her back on a disability leave that was to last until September 2022.
Barsegyan met with management and human resources two days later and was told she was being fired because the investigation found that she "may" be responsible for taking the Russian tea set, the suit stated.
Barsegyan "felt that she was targeted for this crime simply because she spoke Russian" and because she took six months off during her first disability leave, according to her suit.