Massachusetts man sues UMass Medical Group, saying he was discriminated against because of his learning disability

From The Lowell Sun in Mass.:

BOSTON -- A Lowell man has filed a federal lawsuit against UMass Memorial Medical Group in Worcester claiming he was discriminated against because of his learning disability.

In his federal lawsuit filed last month, Scott M. Dickinson of Lowell is seeking $750,000 for back-pay, emotional distress and punitive damages claiming that shortly after he disclosed he had a disability his supervisor's behavior changed to include verbal name calling, blackballing him for a management position and retaliating against him on his evaluation.

Dickinson did not disclose the nature of his learning disability in his lawsuit. He could not be reached for comment.

UMass Memorial Medical Group is a multispecialty group practice with about 800 physicians and more than 1,100 nonphysician staff members. It is one of the largest and most diverse medical groups on the east coast, according to its Web site.

According to a statement from Alison Duffy, a UMass Medical Group spokesman, "Mr. Dickinson had previously raised these allegations in a discrimination complaint filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD); in December 2008 MCAD summarily dismissed the allegations in their entirety, noting a "lack of probable cause" and noted that "the evidence does not support (Mr. Dickinson's) claims that (UMass Memorial) failed to reasonably accommodate his learning disability. Further, when Mr. Dickinson appealed that decision to the MCAD commissioner, the commissioner investigated and in turn upheld the original dismissal of the case for its lack of probable cause."

She added, "As one of the Commonwealth's leading health-care providers, UMass Memorial is an equal opportunity employer with a diverse workforce of nearly 12,000 and is committed to employing individuals without regard to age, race, creed, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, veteran's status, religion, or any other protected class under state or federal law.

We take great pride in the work of our employees and are equally proud of the lengths to which we, as an employer, go to support them in their work; thus, we are naturally concerned when an employee raises allegations of discrimination. UMass Memorial will of course vigorously defend itself against these allegations and we are confident that the Federal Court will find them to be without merit."

In his lawsuit, Dickinson wrote that he was hired at the Worcester-based medical center on Dec. 5, 2005. His supervisor allegedly began to penalize him because "I was having trouble with the Physician Compensation Plan, which was laid out in a format that I had trouble understanding because of my learning disability.''

Dickinson, who is representing himself, wrote that he informed the medical center's human-resources representative about his disability in the fall of 2006. But in December of that year, Dickinson said he met with officials from the center and discussed accommodations for his disability.

A week later, Dickinson alleges his supervisor assigned him an additional division without compensation and two weeks later, his accommodations stopped.

In February 2007, a reorganization announcement was made, and Dickinson applied for several positions that he says fit his qualifications. Human resources contacted him in March 2007 and told him he was not qualified for the managerial post for which he had applied. When he asked for an explanation, "I was told to talk with my supervisor.''

Dickinson claims that when he met with his supervisor, he labeled him as "not qualified'' for a managerial position and that he looked like "an idiot" for applying.

"There were continuous comments made by my supervisor in e-mails and in person saying, 'you're making yourself look stupid,' and constantly used the term 'foolish' in my poor performance evaluation," Dickinson wrote.

Dickinson alleges his supervisor gave him a poor review and a small salary increase of 2.5 percent in retaliation for applying for a manager's position.