Two senior living owners and operators are the targets of federal lawsuits alleging racial discrimination and allowing sexual harassment in the workplace that resulted in sexual assault.
In one case, on Monday the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Phoenix-based Christian Care Management alleging that the company allowed a resident to repeatedly harass female employees over an extended period of time. According to the legal action, the 90-year-old male resident made “vulgar and sexually explicit” comments to several female employees, propositioned them for sexual activity and physically assaulted a female employee.
The suit, filed in Southern District Court for the District of Arizona, alleged that female employees repeatedly complained about the harassment but that Christian Care “failed to take prompt and adequate measures” to end the harassment or deter future harassment. The operator’s inactions, the lawsuit alleged, created a hostile work environment for female employees.
Terilynn Keo, a transportation driver for the company, filed the suit claiming she and a class of female employees employed by Christian Care Companies / Fellowship Square subjected the women to “pervasive and/or severe” sexual harassment. Christian Care operates senior living communities in Arizona in Phoenix, Mesa, Cottonwood, Surprise and Tucson under the name Fellowship Square.
Keo alleged that she was unaware of the resident’s prior history of reportedly sexually harassing female employees when she picked him up to transport him to an appointment in 2021. She reported that the resident made sexual comments throughout the ride and sexually assaulted her.
After an assessment of the resident determined that he did not have a mental illness or disease that impaired his ability to understand what he was doing when he harassed female employees, the community reported Keo’s assault to the Mesa Police Department.
Court documents indicate that Christian Care Executive Director Jon Scott Williams concluded the resident was a “predator” and issued a notice to vacate. The resident moved out of the community in May 2021. Williams indicated he was unaware of written complaints made by six other female employees dating back to 2020. The lawsuit alleged that the residen’t sexual harassment of women at the community was “open, notorious and frequent,” and that the community should have known about it, but did not take “reasonable care” to prevent or correct the behavior.
Christian Care had not responded to a request for comment from McKnight’s Senior Living as of the production deadline.
Race discrimination suit
Also on Monday, the EEOC filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Westminster Ingleside King Farm Presbyterian Retirement Communities. The suit, filed in US District Court for the District of Maryland, alleges that the Rockville, MD-based senior living owner and operator discriminated against Kenya Jeanlouis, a Black employee, by failing to promote her, based on her race, and then fired her in retaliation for complaints of race-based discrimination.
According to the legal action, Ingleside promoted its director of clinical operations for home healthcare — a white woman — to executive director, but required Jeanlouis to obtain a bachelor’s degree before giving her a similar promotion. The degree requirement was not issued to white employees with vice president or executive director titles, according to the filing.
Ingleside operates three continuing care retirement / life plan communities: Ingleside Rock Creek in Washington, DC, Ingleside King Farm in Rockville, MD, and Westminster at Lake Ridge in Lake Ridge, VA. According to the lawsuit, Jealouis was hired in 2020 as director of clinical operations, overseeing healthcare functions at all three CCRCs. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in May 2023 but reportedly was denied a promotion to vice president of clinical operations. At the same time, she assumed the role of interim director of nursing at Ingleside at Rock Creek in addition to her clinical operational role for all of the buildings.
In July 2023, Jeanlouis was issued a written warning for “displaying unprofessionalism and disrespectful behavior” toward a wellness nurse, according to the lawsuit. She reportedly disputed the allegations, saying she “felt targeted based on disparate impact, which has created a stressful and hostile work environment.” Jeanlouis, according to the suit, informed the chief human resources officer that she wanted to file a charge of racial discrimination.. She was fired in November.
Ingleside had not responded to a request for comment from McKnight’s Senior Living as of the production deadline.
