A lawsuit filed in the Stamford Judicial District alleging breach of contract, spoilation of evidence and wrongful termination stemming from complaints to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the latest issue to disturb the peace of a Stamford cemetery.
Charles Hair, an employee at Fairfield Memorial Park since 2011, alleged in his complaint that he was wrongfully terminated from his position in 2018 after he informed the board he had filed an OSHA complaint owing to unsafe working conditions. According to Hair, attempts were then made to destroy his employee contract and security cameras were removed from the cemetery offices to facilitate that destruction. In an amended claim, he also alleged that his overtime pay was withheld.
Counsel for both the employee and the cemetery met with Judge William Clark virtually on June 20 over a motion for summary judgment.
Fairfield Memorial Park was founded in 1936 by Benjamin Pitman as a nonsectarian resting place, but since the early 1990s it has had a troubled history. In 1994, then-state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal won control of the park from owners who were accused of burying bodies in the wrong graves and selling the same plots to multiple buyers, along with other problems.
The state appointed an overseer and a board was formed, but complaints from grave owners persisted, culminating in the 2018 resignation of the entire board. Gerald Bosak Jr., the co-owner and funeral director of the Bosak Funeral Home, was named acting chairperson of a temporary board.
According to Hair’s complaint, he signed an employee contract in 2016, which he alleged contained a provision that he could only be terminated from the position for just cause and after a review process on the part of the board. Hair said that in 2018 he informed the board, that he had filed an OSHA complaint due to unsafe working conditions, which elicited a demand that he turn over all documents related to the complaint to the board followed by his suspension.
Current OSHA records for Connecticut do not list any complaints filed against either Fairfield Memorial Park or Colonial Cemeteries Inc., the nonprofit controlled by the board that runs the facility. However, the defendants admit that Hair informed them that he had made a complaint to OSHA while disputing the existence of any unsafe working conditions.
Hair alleged that while he was suspended, Bosak entered the cemetery offices and removed security cameras. According to Hair, Bosak did so in order to access the cemetery office safe and destroy Hair’s contract without being recorded.
Bosak, citing the pending litigation, said that he had no comment. Melissa Fahey, the current chairwoman of the board, also declined to comment on the ongoing lawsuit.
The defense team asserted that Hair has been unable to provide proof of most of his allegations. It allowed that there may have been discrepancies in payment, but as Hair was responsible for reporting work hours to the accounting firm, such issues would stem from his own failures to accurately report the information.
Also at issue are four sworn affidavits regarding the signing of the alleged employment contract.
Hair has provided sworn testimony that Thomas Hickey, the vice chairman of the board of directors for the cemetery at the time, signed the document after he wrote a draft of it, while Hickey has submitted a sworn affidavit saying he did not.
Mairi Hair, who is both the sexton of the cemetery and Charles’ grandmother, has submitted an affidavit stating she was present for the signing, supporting her grandson’s version of events, albeit with differing details.
Bosak has also submitted an affidavit, denying Hair’s accusation that he also signed the document, citing that he was not yet on the board at the time the document was allegedly signed.
Judge Clark weighed these points in the virtual meeting and inquired into the nature of Hair’s role in the cemetery’s payroll system. He told both parties that he would review the case and inform them when he reached a decision.
