Brooklyn Hospital To Pay $200K In Employment Discrimination Case

BROOKLYN, NY — The borough's largest hospital will pay one of its former pharmacists nearly $200,000 after an employment discrimination case against the facility, prosecutors announced.

Maimonides Medical Center will pay $195,000 to Lt. Colonel Louis Rego, who worked as a pharmacist at the hospital until late 2017, after a settlement was reached in a lawsuit over his firing, officials said Monday.

The lawsuit followed Rego's termination from the hospital a few weeks after he returned from active military duty. It is against the law to discriminate against employees based on their current or prior service in the military.

“Lieutenant Colonel Rego’s honorable service to his country cost him his job as a pharmacist, even though USERRA flatly prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on account of their military service,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko. “This Office is firmly committed to enforcing USERRA’s requirements and to holding employers like Maimonides accountable for their failure to comply.”

Rego's firing unfolded after he took a leave of absence from the hospital between July and October 2017 for a tour of duty with the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency at Fort Detrick in Maryland, according to prosecutors.

Only seven weeks after he returned, he was told by a supervisor that his position was being eliminated and that he would be terminated as part of a reduction in staff that would save money for the hospital. Rego was the only employee out of 100 people in his department who was fired, according to prosecutors.

After he left, Maimonides promoted and gave pay raises to two mid-level managers in order to cover some of Rego’s duties and paid non-managers overtime to perform other duties. They also hired new employees in the pharmacy department both before and after Rego was fired, and even had a job opening for his position online before he was dismissed, officials said.

With the settlement, Maimonides will pay Rego the $195,000 to compensate him for lost wages and other damages.

It also requires hospital officials and human resources staff to go annual training about the rights of service members under Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which includes the employment discrimination laws.