Mississippi woman awarded $100K after being fired for reporting employer abused person with disabilities
Published 6:09 am Monday, December 2, 2019
A Mississippi jury has sided with a woman who says she was wrongfully fired from her job at a center for disabled individuals after reporting patient abuse.
News outlets report a Lee County jury last week ordered the Tupelo-based Brandi’s Hope Community Services LLC to pay Heather Walters $100,000.
Walters sued the caregiving center and accused it of trying to hide a patient’s 2017 assault.
She said she was terminated for an unspecified policy violation after reporting the attack.
An attorney for Brandi’s Hope denied the accusations.
Walters said her then-coworker, 34-year-old Cleatonia Burns, struck a 21-year-old patient.
The Clarion-Ledger reports Attorney General Jim Hood said Burns was later convicted of felony abuse of a vulnerable person.
Hood’s office says Burns was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation.
