Fitzgerald and Landry vs. Correctional Medical Services, Carla Cesario, Terre Marshall, and Joanne Ciesluk

Fitzgerald and Landry were employed as Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) by Defendant Correctional Medical Services (CMS) at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Cedar Junction (also known as Walpole Prison). (CMS provides medical care for all state prison inmates.) In early 1997, both Fitzgerald and Landry were involved to varying degrees with union organizing activities. In June of that year, both LPNs were summoned separately to suspension meetings in which they were accused of breaking into the CMS administrative office "on or about June 3, 1997". Though they were told there was an "eyewitness," neither woman was allowed to either face the accuser or even know of his identity. Despite the criminal nature of the charges, CMS management at Walpole (the Director of Nursing and manager, a social worker) conducted an "investigation." The only witness - and only person interviewed about the matter - was a fellow nightshift Registered Nurse who had initially reported the alleged "break in" almost 3 weeks after the fact in an anonymous letter. Management interviewed him and had him write another letter outside their presence. That letter factually contradicted the first letter. Other facts surrounding the allegations - even the health services unit lighting after 11pm - were instrumental in the plaintiffs' claims that the eyewitness' allegations were untrustworthy and that CMS had defamed the plaintiffs by terminating them, reporting the matter to prison management, and by filing complaints against both of the plaintiffs with the Board of Registation in Nursing.

Marshall and Joanne Ciesluk were dismissed by the plaintiffs prior to the start of the trial and Carla Cesario was dismissed after the second day of trial. The only defendant in the case at the time of the verdict was Correctional Medical Services (CMS).

Plaintiffs' verdict for $50,000 plus 12% interest ($20,000 for one plaintiff and $30,000 for the other plaintiff). Plaintiffs also brought claims for age discrimination against CMS and that CMS won on these claims at trial. Further, the jury did not find that CMS did anything wrong in its termination of the plaintiffs. It only found that CMS had defamed the plaintiffs in statements it published after the terminations.

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(Norfolk County, MA, was recently rated the most difficult large county in the US to obtain a plaintiff's tort verdict.

Reported by Michael C. Hagerman, Counsel for the Plaintiffs