CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An 11-year employee of the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center has filed a lawsuit, alleging unlawful discrimination and intentionally downgrading her performance after the death of a veteran in 2010.
Whistleblower Paula Leligdon, of Medina, who filed the 39-page lawsuit in U. S. District Court here, is currently a supervisor in the area of Psychiatry Social Work at the facility.
Leligdon contends that, in April of 2010, a veteran was involved in a fight with another veteran at the Brecksville VA Outpatient Mental Health CIinic that resulted in the first veteran's death.
Following the incident, Leligdon organized information for a report that she would forward to VA management.
According to the lawsuit, her former supervisor Dale Goldstein told her to copy the notes from the veteran's computerized patient record system to her report of contact note, which is a separate report, documenting the altercation and ensuing death.
Leligdon declined because of the severity of the situation. Her additional disclosures included information about how upset the veteran was and how the veteran's presenting conditions would support a conclusion that medical staff could have done more to prevent the veteran's death.
After the veteran's death, Leligdon believes her colleagues, including Goldstein and Joe Aquilina, Chief of Social Work, ceased their regular communications and interactions with her.
Goldstein allegedly told Leligdon, "You should have listened, if only you would have listened to me."
Leligdon and other VA personnel were subpoenaed to testify in a hearing regarding the veteran's death, but the case settled before the hearing.
In the months following the incident, Leligdon accuses the VA of unlawfully targeting her. She says they used surveillance on her at her home, in the community and elsewhere.
The surveillance involved the participation of other law enforcement agencies, including Medina County and the City of Medina, where on various occasions, Leligdon says, she would be pulled over while driving for no legitimate violations.
In February 2011, during a VA Ethics Committee meeting that Leligdon attended via a conference call, while Aquilinia was in the same room, an unidentified female caller indicated that she discovered an employee was about to reveal information via social media sites.
The female caller said that, if the information had been disseminated to the media and public, it would destroy the VA Medical Center.
Upon discovering the imminent disclosure, the female caller said that she contacted Joseph Picklo, VA Privacy Officer, and asked him to have the evidence destroyed.
According to the female caller, Picklo did destroy the evidence.
Leligdon claims she has been passed over for at least three promotions, including Assistant Chief of Social Work within the VA and was removed for her role in the Mental Health Monitor Committee and the Psychiatry Grand Rounds Committee.
Leligdon is represented by Washington, D.C.-based attorney Richard Renner, who declined comment for this story.
The case has been assigned to U.S. Distrcit Court Judge Donald C. Nugent.
For an entire review of the lawsuit, see below:
