Friedman & Houlding LLP has filed suit against Ameriserve for its illegal termination of an employee resulting from her cancer diagnosis. After a wave of public outcry over allegations that Ameriserve International, an organization whose mission is to serve those with intellectual disabilities, fired an employee for having cancer, a former Ameriserve manager has reached out with damning evidence confirming that cancer patient and former employee Megan Purcell was illegally fired because of her diagnosis—on order of Ameriserve President Dana Nielsen.
The former manager, who resigned from Ameriserve in disgust over its toxic environment, explains in her sworn statement that she was in the room when Ameriserve Executive Director and President Dana Nielsen gave the instruction to fire Ms. Purcell because she had cancer:
I was in [Vice President] Eric Seitz’s office with Eric, and Dana Nielsen popped his head in the doorway. Nielsen stated: “Megan Purcell has cancer. Get rid of her.” I responded to the effect of, “She has colon cancer, and has a procedure scheduled to treat it.” Nielsen then responded, “Colon cancer doesn’t just go away. Our insurance policy already went up with [another employee’s] kidney shit. Get rid of her.”