A federal appeals court has overturned a judge's decision to
dismiss the lawsuit of a woman who alleged she was forced to quit her job at
the University of Chicago Hospitals because of her religious beliefs.
The decision, issued Wednesday by a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court
of Appeals, means that Victoria Leyva can go forward with her lawsuit.
In the ruling, the panel held that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
representing Leyva, sufficiently showed that Leyva was forced to quit because
religious discrimination had created intolerable working conditions.
The decision reverses a ruling in 2000 by U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning,
who threw out the lawsuit, saying Leyva's resignation was voluntary.
Leyva, an Evangelical Christian Baptist, worked as a recruiter at the
hospitals' employment department in the early 1990s.
In her lawsuit, Leyva alleges that her job evaluations were positive until the
hospitals hired a new director of human services, Jo Ann Shaw.
According to the lawsuit, Shaw directed other employees to order Leyva to remove
religious items from her desk, ordered her and others to stop recruiting at
churches and fired Leyva's immediate supervisor for not firing her.
Leyva alleges that while on vacation she was called by a supervisor asking for
help finding paperwork on Leyva's desk. But Leyva was unable to help.
The lawsuit alleges she quit when she returned to work and found that her
belongings had been packed into storage boxes.
"We were saying they were making it clear to her they wanted her to leave
and if she didn't, they were going to fire her," said Ethan Cohen, an EEOC
attorney handling the case.
The appeals court agreed, saying in its opinion that the EEOC "has
sufficiently demonstrated that a reasonable employee standing in Leyva's shoes
would have believed that had she not resigned, she would have been
terminated."
Leyva was pleased with the decision. "Although it was painful at times,
traumatic at times, the truth prevailed and the system worked," she said.
John Easton, a spokesman for the hospitals, said officials there were
disappointed with the decision but "confident that we will prevail if the
case goes to trial."