Legal Question in Employment Law in Virginia

I currently work in the safety & security department for a hospital in my area. Recently, the director of my department sent out an email to 4 employees asking if anyone would be interested in applying for an open interim supervisor position. Three of the four employees responded with an interest in the position, including myself. The current supervisor is going out on medical leave in November and will return in February for a month and then retire a month or two later. With that said, the interim position is being used to see who would be a good fit as a supervisor once the position comes open permanently. Three of us had an interest in the position and there are three months to serve total as interim supervisor. One employee decided he no longer wanted to be considered for the position, so now there�s three months to serve and two of us interested. One employee chose to serve for the month of November, the employee who withdrew from the position was going to serve in December, and I was scheduled to serve in January. The current supervisor updated his return date from February to mid January now which interferes with my scheduled time to serve as supervisor. I asked the director if I could simply switch my month to December since the current supervisor is now coming back to work during the month that I was to act as interim supervisor, the director stated that the first employee who is serving in November will serve as supervisor for two months in a row and I will still have January and that if the current supervisor returns to work early then I will not be allowed to serve as interim supervisor. I have stated that I feel that this decision is unfair and shows favoritism and supports discrimination. The director still stands by her decision.
With that said, I have a background of run-ins with this director. I was selected to serve on jury duty over the summer and provided the director with a copy of my summons and a sheet signed by the judge for every day of work that I missed due to jury duty. At first, I was told by the director that I would not be paid for serving on jury duty and that I would have to use my paid time off if I wanted to be paid. Once I stated the laws pertaining to not penalizing an employee for serving on a juror and that I am not to use my sick time or vacation time as a means of pay while serving on a juror, she backed off and agreed to pay me. It states in my company�s handbook that an employee will be paid up to 15 days of regular pay while serving jury duty. A month later, I received a write up for excessive absences. The dates listed on the write up were from when I served on jury duty and I stated that I can not be penalized for attending jury duty. A few days later, I was approached once again and told that I was in fact being written up for the dates I served on. I took a copy of the write up to the court and the commonwealth attorney got involved in the case and cleared it up for me. The director told the commonwealth attorney that I was never written up or penalized for the dates that I sated, even though the commonwealth attorney had a copy of the write up in front of him. She was caught in a lie and has held a grudge against me ever since. Whenever I see the director she turns her head or avoids me. Now that I have been chosen for the interim supervisor, she is doing everything she can to not allow me to serve. She has given the reason of consistency and job experience for selecting the first employee to serve two months. There is no consistency, there was going to be three employees getting a chance to serve as supervisor, one employee serve one month. That is not consistency. Also, the first employee has an attendance issue and has several write ups. He also does not have more job experience or the college education that I have. I feel as though I am being discriminated against, that this is a form of retaliation for the previous incidents that I have had with her, and that I am not being given an equal opportunity to serve as supervisor. Any help with this situation will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Asked on 11/05/10, 10:51 pm

Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

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In my opinion you will need to await the decision as to who is

actually selected to permanently fill the supervisor's position before

mounting any claims of discrimination or other irregularities in the

selection process for this position. Until such occurs and there is an

identifiable course of conduct on the part of those doing the selecting

for this position, much of what you've referenced appears to be

speculative as to whether such may or may not affect the final decision for determining who gets to fill the retiring supervisor's position.

Answered on 11/11/10, 6:54 am

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