Legal Question in Employment Law in Illinois
I am currently working at a hospital as a rehabilitation therapist. I have been an employee of the company for 4.5 years. In the past two years I have had a few altercations with a subordinate rehab technician. I can describe the altercations in more detail but it would take up 10 pages. Basically, this person behaves as if my opinion (as well as several others') does not matter and he can do his job however he wants. With the exception of maybe my immediate supervisor, he ignores orders, talks back and, to me, has been verbally aggressive and abusive. His job only exists because of my license to practice. There are three therapists and two rehab technicians in our department. It is my and one other colleague's license that he works off of. Our confrontations have always involved some type of either insubordinate behavior where he ignored something he was asked to do or he was doing something harmful to a patient or chose to make changes to the department without consulting anyone else. Initially it started in Jan2012. I complained and wrote a 3 page report of his behavior to our boss. Each time I complained to her, his aggression towards me increased dramatically. After about 2 months it subsided and we began having a more cordial relationship. I purposefully avoided antagonizing Him even if it meant not getting something i needed that was within his job description to do. Then last month I had a random encounter with him in a patient's room. He was again doing something he was not supposed to do and I became upset as it was an order I had given him that he was ignoring. I attempted to distance myself from him immediately because of his aggressive nature. However he complained to our boss. Our boss then addressed the situation during a staff meeting. This incited rage and aggressive screaming from the technician at me during which he spoke about how he thinks everything I do is meant in someway to antagonize him and also discussed my bowel habits when using our shared staff bathroom. My boss forced me to participate in the arguement after I said at least three times that I did not want to say anything while he was screaming at me. I can provide more details of what was said but again it would be a ten page account. After this meeting, I called my HR rep and complained about his behavior towards me, told her that I felt threatened by him and that though I am willing to go to my boss, I am afraid as with the last time he becomes increasingly more hostile towards me each time i go to her. Later my boss and her supervisor wrote both him and me up. They wrote me up and cited my "tone" of voice when speaking to him was condescending, and also for a one time uniform violation and because I come in late a lot. I have done SOOO much for this department including things that were intended to increase team morale, but I received very little acknwedgement for it. I am willing to accept fault for my "tone" but its perception as condescending is subjective at best and when asked, my supervisors had trouble presenting exact examples of this tone. After this I was very upset. I feel they are trying to lay culpability on me to excuse the fact that they have not truly done anything concrete to control his behavior. This is at will employment. several years ago I was bullied by another coworker at different job. I was let go from that job because again i stood up against being bullied and refused to work with this person. There They used the fact that I called off too many times as a way to write me up and fire me. I hadn't done anything wrong up until that point so they had to find something, right? I am willing to admit my interpersonal skills are not perfect, but there are several very big positive things that I have done for my current job. And I KNOW that no matter how condescending my tone, I have never done ANYTHING worthy of being verbally abused and subjected to that level of hostility from someone who only has a job because of my license. I will probably leave this job soon because I don't want to get fired again but my frustration over being written up has caused me great disdain and even severe angina and heart issues. I feel horribly violated and wrongfully accused. Is there ANYTHING that I can do legally? Can I sue for personal injury? Anything?
1 Answer from Attorneys
An experienced and capable employment law attorney can help you strategize how best to deal with this situation to achieve your goals. The situation you described sounds to me like you might be heading toward losing your job unless something changes; you, the coworker, or a combination of both.