CHARLESTON – A woman is accusing Prestera Center of wrongful termination and age discrimination after she reported patient safety concerns as well as discrimination and retaliation issues.
Wanda D. Watson filed her complaint in Kanawha Circuit Court against Prestera Center for Mental Health Services and Alyce Crist, who was Watson’s supervisor.
According to her complaint, Watson worked as a therapist from September 2012 until she was fired in December 2020. When she expressed her desire to increase her licensure status by obtaining a licensed independent clinical social worker license, Watson says the defendants denied her request. She says Crist told her she needed to get a licensed certified social worker license first.
But Watson says the state Board of Social Work already had told her she didn’t need the LCSW license to get the LICSW license because she already had a licensed graduate social worker license.
When Watson continued to request permission to get the LICSW license, she says she was told no slots were available even though Prestera found slots for substantially younger employees to do so.
When she joined Prestera’s Assertive Community Treatment team in October 2017, Watson says she became aware of patient safety issues such as improper dispersion of medications, patients not receiving medications or improper services. She says it resulted in some patients being hospitalized.
But, she says she only received disciplinary actions taken against her for reporting safety concerns. After she later reported discrimination and retaliation concerns to the state Human Rights Commission, Watson says she was fired on Deember 17, 2020.
Watson accuses the defendants of age discrimination and retaliation in violation of the state Human Rights Act as well as the West Virginia Patient Safety Act.
She says she has suffered loss of dignity, embarrassment, humiliation, aggravation and emotional distress as well as lost wages and benefits.
Watson seeks compensatory and punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
She is being represented by Todd Bailess, Jodi Durhma and Cory Lowe of the Bailess Law Firm in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Duke Bloom.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 22-c-572
