Gessy Toussaint — who shares the name of the best-known leader of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint L’Ouverture — also believes in fighting against the odds and winning.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury ruled on Wednesday that Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., retaliated against Toussaint, a Haitian-American nurse who stood up for a colleague, and has awarded her $28 million. Deliberation took more than three days.
Toussaint, 70, said the retaliation started after she defended another Haitian American nurse, Nirva Berthold, who she said was being verbally abused, according to The Boston Globe. Toussaint said Brigham began investigating her for numerous instances of allegedly poor patient care.
Berthold said she was denied a promotion because she’s Black. That claim is still pending. The two women filed the joint lawsuit in 2014. Toussaint’s claims were the first to go to trial.
The jury said that Toussaint did not prove race discrimination but came to an agreement that Brigham and manager Mary Ann Kenyon were guilty of retaliation.
According to the lawsuit, in one instance, Kenyon told the nurse she was to be placed on administrative leave because a doctor complained about her handling of a patient. Toussaint said the doctor actually complimented her work, and then Kenyon changed her stance saying the patient’s wife complained. But the wife wasn’t present at the time of service.
Toussaint will receive $25 million in punitive damages. The remaining $3 million of the award accounts for lost wages and emotional distress. She began working at Brigham in 1999 and resigned in 2015. Berthold still works at the hospital.
“Employment lawyers said the $25 million verdict for punitive damages was the largest they have seen in an employment discrimination and retaliation case in Massachusetts,” according to the Globe.Brigham said it “strongly disagree[s]” with the court’s findings and plans to appeal the ruling.
