Yorktown nursing home employee claims Covid-19 retaliation

A nursing home employee who said he worked on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic claims he was fired two days after he was diagnosed as infected, even as the nursing home itself ignored protocols to fight the disease.

Deric Holloway claims that Yorktown Rehabilitation & Nursing Center fired him for “willful misconduct” because he had complained that the nursing home had failed to protect workers and because he had demanded paid sick leave.

Holloway, of Brewster, is demanding unspecified damages from Yorktown Rehabilitation in  Cortlandt Manor in a complaint filed Nov. 20 in U.S. District Court, White Plains.

Ephraim Zagelbaum, founder and CEO of Personal Healthcare in Tarrytown, the owner of the Yorktown nursing home, did not respond to a request for comment.

Yorktown Rehabilitation employed Holloway as a certified occupational therapy assistant from February 2019 to April 2020.

He claims that on March 20 the staff was directed not to use donated N95 face masks and that an administrator commented that the staff would look ridiculous wearing the masks and would cause mass hysteria if they did wear them.

A week later, March 27, Holloway told his supervisor that he did not feel well. When he arrived at work the following day, his temperature was 100.6 and he was allegedly accused of manipulating the result by drinking hot coffee.

Holloway went home, taking a laptop computer to continue working.

He was tested March 29 for Covid-19.

That day, according to the complaint, a manager asked him to return the laptop and offered to have her husband pick it up. Instead, Holloway took it back to the nursing home.

On March 30, he was notified that he had tested positive for Covid-19.

His supervisor told him to isolate himself at home for seven days or until he was free of fever for three days. She brought him a thermometer and a log book.

Holloway said he asked his supervisor why the nursing home thought he was faking illness, and he said his diagnosis might have been avoided if he had been allowed to wear the N95 masks.

Several times, according to the complaint, he requested compensation for the work he did at home but received no responses.

On April 1, his temperature was normal but he still had a sore throat and hacking cough, according to the complaint. His supervisor suggested that he could return to work on April 4.

Then the human resources director called and said he was being fired immediately.

The official termination letter accused him of willful misconduct, for violating Covid-19 protocols by the county health department and the nursing home. Specifically, he was accused of failure to remain at home for the whole isolation period and failure to self-monitor and report his symptoms.

Holloway surmises that the isolation charge refers to his returning the laptop computer, even though he had not yet tested positive for the disease. As to self-monitoring, he claims he reported his symptoms and he was never told that he was monitoring himself improperly.

He also claims that he was never given the county and nursing home Covid-19 protocols, and that his supervisor had not worn personal protective equipment when she delivered the thermometer to his home.

Holloway claims that Yorktown Rehabilitation violated his rights under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, entitling him to paid sick leave, and retaliated for his requests for compensation.

He is demanding back pay, lost benefits and damages for emotional distress.

Zagelbaum and Personal Healthcare are also named as defendants, for allegedly aiding or abetting illegal conduct, though no specific allegations are lodged against them. Four managers accused in the complaint of wrongdoing are not named as defendants.

Greenburgh attorneys Howard Schragin and Ann L. Moscow and White Plains attorney Patricia M. Mulligan represent Holloway.