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County to pay $70,000

Nurse claiming wrongful termination gets settlement

By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008 6:40 AM PDT

San Joaquin County has reached a settlement with a former county public health nurse who claims she was wrongfully terminated for whistle blowing.

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to pay Melinda Lagorio-Sanchez $70,000.

"It was an economic decision," Chief Deputy County Counsel Kristen Hegge said on Wednesday, explaining why the board chose to settle. "We thought we had a good case."

Lagorio-Sanchez claimed that she was terminated in February 2006 after accusing Kathleen Tully, program manager of the county Public Health Services Department, of failing to file reports of patients with Hepatitis A and other diseases in a timely manner, according to the lawsuit filed June 23, 2006.

Tully was tardy in assigning these cases to public health nurses, which caused patients to miss treatment resulting in the threat of further disease, according to the lawsuit. Tully also allegedly falsified documents in what appeared to be an effort to conceal her untimely assignment of reports to public health nurses.

Lagorio-Sanchez and other nurses began to register complaints about Tully in November 2005, according to the lawsuit.

Lagorio-Sanchez, who was eight months pregnant, took time off work on Feb. 15, 2006 to seek medical attention due to stress, according to the suit. Six days later, Tully allegedly caused a termination letter to be mailed to her. The termination took effect Feb. 24, 2006.

"We do not agree that all of those things were correct," said Hegge, the attorney representing the county.

Sacramento attorney Daniel G. O'Donnell, who represented Lagorio-Sanchez, was not available for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

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