Public Employee Press

$128,000 goes to Local 420 member for wrongful firing

DC 37 won reinstatement and $128,000 in back pay for Patient Care Associate Raymon Monzon, who was falsely accused of sexual abuse at Gouverneur Hospital.

In 2002, three months after the alleged incident, a patient accused the Local 420 member of brushing her breast while taking her blood pressure.

With Hospitals Division Council Rep Barbara Perrotte, Monzon filed a grievance, but the hospital fired him three days after a Step 1 hearing. At Step 2 in 2003, the decision and penalty were upheld.

The DC 37 legal team demanded impartial arbitration, and at a hearing last year they called for the penalty to be rescinded. HHC produced only one witness, and the union lawyer pointed out that the patient’s statements were inconsistent with what she said at the Step l hearing and questioned why it took her three months to report the incident. The union argued that the contact was accidental.

Citing the three-month-late report of the alleged abuse and explaining that a fundamental aspect of sexual abuse is intent, which HHC failed to demonstrate, the arbitrator ruled that HHC failed to meet its burden of proof against Monzon. The decision reinstated the member with back pay from the date of termination until the date of reinstatement, and ordered him credited with the seniority and benefits he would have earned while off the payroll.

HHC appealed the decision to state Supreme Court, and earlier this year Judge Leland DeGrasse upheld the arbitrator’s decision.

“This is an incredible victory,” said Local 420 President Carmen Charles. “Everyone, the member, the grievance rep and the legal team, worked together to make this possible.”