CHARLESTON – A queer former employee of Fort Hill Child Development Center claims she was discriminated against and wrongfully terminated.
The plaintiff, identified only as M.R. because she is a minor, names the daycare as well as Carolyn Jean Hawks and Jamie Gaeger as defendants in the complaint filed December 29 in Kanawha Circuit Court. Hawks is the owner and director of the center, and Gaeger is listed as the director and business manager.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff worked as a “teen aide” at the center, which she says tells its customer base that it “strive(s) to make the atmosphere at Fort Hill healthy, happy, safe and nurturing.”
Plaintiff identifies herself as a 17-year-old bi-racial queer female. She began working at the center on March 8 in the “Playmates” department. She was the primary teacher and source of comfort for a number of her young students, according to the complaint.
She says employee Elizabeth Gill repeatedly harassed her because of her sexual orientation, made comments to and about her and about same-sex couples who brought children to the daycare.
M.R. “witnesses this employee refusing to speak to same-sex parents during drop-off/pickup, making nasty faces directed at them and giving them dirty looks,” the complaint states. “Ms. Gill even verbally informed plaintiff that she was a ‘sin’ for being gay.”
The plaintiff says she reported Gill’s harassment, discrimination and hostility to Hawks on July 7. She says Hawks dismissed the report, simply saying, “She can say what she wants, it is freedom of speech.”
But, she says that freedom of speech wasn’t a two-way street.
“Ironically and unfathomably, defendants mandated that plaintiff, a teenage girl, apologize to Ms. Gill after plaintiff appropriately informed her co-worker that her ‘Abortion is Murder’ shirt was offensive to her,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff complied with this mandate despite being humiliated and ashamed to do so, and notwithstanding the fact that defendants did not mandate that Ms. Gill apologize to plaintiff for her harassment because of who she is.”
On July 14, M.R. says the defendants provided her with an Employee Warning Report and fired her. The alleged violation was of the center’s cell phone policy. The date listed was July 7, which was the day M.R. reported Gill’s harassment to Hawks.
The plaintiff says even if she violated the policy, which she claims she didn’t, other employees routinely used their cell phones but did not receive such a warning or termination.
M.R. accuses the defendants of race and gender discrimination and wrongful termination. She also accuses Hawks and Gaeger of intentional infliction of emotional distress and a tort of outrage. She also accuses Fort Hill of vicarious liability.
She seeks compensatory and punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, attorney fees, court costs and other relief. She is being represented by Mary Pat Statler of Bailey & Glasser in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Kenneth Ballard.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 22-C-1101
