A Massachusetts nurse who sued her employer Brigham and Women’s Hospital for racial discrimination & retaliation after sticking up for her Black co-worker was awarded $28 million on Wednesday by the jury.
Gessy Toussaint filed a lawsuit against the hospital in 2014 accusing Brigham of targeting her after she protected another Haitian-American colleague, Nirva Berthold. Toussaint believed company employees were verbally abusing Berthold.
The hospital began nitpicking with Toussaint and accused her of poor patient care while opening up an investigation, the Boston Globe reported.
After three days of deliberation, the Suffolk Superior Court jury ruled against Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which the nurse’s attorneys called “monumental”. Her racial discrimination suit was not proved, but concluded that the hospital and manager Mary Ann Kenyon, did indeed retaliate against Toussaint. $25 million of the award was for punitive damages.
The nurses’ friend Berthold’s lawsuit is still pending. She claimed she was denied a promotion because she’s Black.
