The former director of human resources at the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services is suing the organization for firing her, allegedly because she was poised to tell the board of directors about management’s failure to uphold laws protecting employees’ rights.
Rachel Atkins was hired as HR director in 2012, and held that role until February 2019, when she was terminated.
Over those seven years, Atkins alleges in the lawsuit that on a number of occasions, VCCVS leadership ignored her warnings about potentially illegal practices, demoted her to ensure she’d have less power to stop those decisions, and then ultimately, fired her so she couldn’t bring her allegations to the company’s board of directors.
“The reason this is in the public interest is because it happened at the Center for Crime Victim Services, on behalf of the people of the state of Vermont,” said Jim Dumont, Atkins’ attorney.
VCCVS is an “instrumentality” of the state, but not a direct agency or subsidiary, according to the suit. It has 24 employees and provides advocacy and services to victims of serious crimes.
Atkins’ complaints began at a meeting in 2012, according to the suit, when she alleges that a supervisor instructed employees not to note overtime hours on timecards. Atkins contested that, telling employees that their hours legally must be accurately recorded, according to the suit.
The lawsuit says from that incident on, because of Atkins’ “insistence on compliance with the law,” the supervisor was antagonistic and minimized her role as HR director.
The suit’s second major claim is that the supervisor’s treatment of an employee violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The employee sought Atkins’ advice in communicating with the supervisor about her increased stress at work, which she was making her physically sick, the suit says.
The suit says that the supervisor asked several times if the employee was bipolar and once if she had an ovarian disorder that causes hormonal swings.
Atkins met with executive director Christine Fenno to discuss the employee’s treatment by the supervisor and told Fenno it was potentially creating a legal liability for VCCVS, the lawsuit states.
“You work for the company. You have allowed Jane Doe to triangle you. Did it ever occur to you that this is a performance issue?,” Fenno told Atkins, according to the suit.
The lawsuit alleges that Fenno cut Atkins’ role on HR issues, including in the creation of a “deputy director” position, to which the supervisor was promoted, according to the suit, without posting the position internally or externally.
Fenno later told Atkins that she intentionally excluded her in the process, as well as in two other promotions, according to the suit.
Atkins alleges she was fired in an incident that ensued after she reminded the VCCVS board that Fenno’s annual review was due, and Fenno emailed Atkins, asking her not to contact the board directly.
Fenno also requested that her annual review by staff be put off until her third anniversary and that she could meet with the board herself to discuss her accomplishments, according to the suit.
However, in the midst of those conversations, Atkins accidentally sent a text to Fenno that detailed Atkins’ concerns about the delay in the board’s review and referred to “upsetting the apple cart.”
Fenno responded, “it sounds like you might have an agenda about my evaluation after all. And what apple cart are you referring to?”
At Atkins’ subsequent meeting with Fenno, she was informed she was being terminated, the suit states.
“It doesn’t matter what you did, it matters that you did it,” the lawsuit alleges that Fenno said, as she informed Atkins of her termination.
Atkins’ was the first instance of an employee at VCCVS being terminated without prior written or verbal warning since 2012, the lawsuit alleges.
“On information and belief, the decision to discharge Ms. Atkins was made with the intent to prevent Ms. Atkins from bringing to the Board’s attention facts about Ms. Fenno’s performance over the prior year,” the suit states.
The lawsuit alleges that the termination was made “in bad faith and in willful and wanton disregard of Ms. Atkins’ rights.”
The lawsuit states that the termination has left Atkins unemployable within her field, and “destroyed” her career. It argues Arkins has suffered “severe emotional distress” because of lack of income to support herself and her dependent.
As such, the lawsuit is seeking a trial by jury, reinstatement, compensatory damages, punitive damages, equitable remedies, and attorneys fees and costs.
“This is public money providing a public service,” Dumont said. “And it’s a service that’s really important: providing services to victims of serious crime. And then within the agency itself, if the facts of this case are correct, they seem to have a problem following Vermont law.”
