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As it appeared in Law360 Employment Authority
A nursing home operator allowed managers to disparage female employees and neglect residents, ultimately firing a nursing director who expressed concerns regarding these incidents of “extreme malpractice and negligence,” according to a complaint filed Wednesday in a New York state court.
Cheri Reppenhagen lodged her complaint against Center for Care LLC, also known as Centers Health Care, which operates several nursing facilities, as well as against two of its affiliates and four named executives.
Reppenhagen said Centers transferred her from a facility in Schenectady, New York, to its Troy Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in October 2022 to “fix” the various problems plaguing the facility, but she was met with roadblocks each time she attempted to draw attention to health and safety issues.
“Concerned that these violations placed her coworkers and residents at risk for harm, Ms. Reppenhagen made protected complaints to her superiors with hope that Centers’s problem would be fixed before anyone else was hurt,” Reppenhagen said. “When management at the Troy Center learned of Ms. Reppenhagen’s concerns and her intent to make protected complaints, defendants explicitly instructed her not to make any formal reports.”
Reppenhagen said after arriving at Troy Center, she experienced myriad ways in which male managers insulted and disparaged women, including referring to them as “idiots” and commenting that women are only good for making babies.
And while she was under the impression that she had been sent to Troy Center to reprioritize patient safety, management had different ideas, according to the complaint.
The facility’s administrator “insisted on communicating only via encrypted disappearing messaging platforms” with Reppenhagen, and insisted that she not document incidents in which staff members failed to adhere to patients’ care plans, the suit said.
Employees were also incentivized to not report patient emergencies to emergency services, with Centers executives offering a $10,000 award to the administrator and director of nursing with the lowest resident hospitalization rate, Reppenhagen said.
“This crass bounty program created predictably perverse incentives for defendants to keep severely sick residents out of the hospital and contributed to [Troy’s administrator] opposing Ms. Reppenhagen’s attempts to call emergency services,” the complaint said.
Despite the company’s best efforts to keep her quiet, Reppenhagen said she filed several internal complaints regarding safety violations, including insect infestations, asbestos violations, urine-soaked patient sheets and staffing shortages.
Reppenhagen said she wasn’t alone in noticing these violations: In June 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Centers accusing it of misappropriating more than $83 million in Medicare and Medicaid funding while severely neglecting residents.
Reppenhagen said she started to look elsewhere for work, and was offered a new role elsewhere. But Centers offered her a promotion, so she turned down the other offer, Reppenhagen said.
However, a few days later, Centers abruptly pulled her promotion and fired her due to her “history” at Troy Center, the suit said.
But her “history” at Troy Center was just “a thinly veiled euphemism” for the multiple complaints she had lodged over her tenure with the company, Reppenhagen said.
Her suit seeks back and front pay and compensatory and emotional distress damages, as well as attorney fees.
“Our client is a devoted nurse who was fired for reporting the types of things that Centers Health Care is being sued for by the State of New York,” Shane Seppinni, who’s representing Reppenhagen, said in a statement. “Just as we are confident the many patients harmed by Centers Health Care’s depravity will get justice, we also demand justice for Ms. Reppenhagen, a nurse who was punished for speaking up for her patients.”
A spokesperson for Centers Health Care declined to comment.
Reppenhagen is represented by Shane Seppinni and Zachary Rubin of Seppinni Law PLLC.
Counsel information for Centers Health Care was not available Wednesday.
The case is Cheri Reppenhagen v. Center for Care LLC et al. in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Bronx. The case number was unavailable.
–Editing by Bruce Goldman.
Update: This article has been updated with a response from Centers Health Care.
