A New Mexico firefighter who was terminated last year has filed suit alleging gender discrimination and whistleblower retaliation. Deidre Maurino filed suit against Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue, the fire chief, the Human Resource director, and two officers of the department.
The suit was originally filed in Sandoval County District Court, and removed to US District Court for the District of New Mexico by the defendants. The suit alleges that Maurino was subjected to disparate treatment; singled out for being “rude” and “too direct” with colleagues and the public; and retaliated against for speaking out about proposed changes to the department’s EMS response protocols. Maurino also alleged a violation of the state’s wage payment law by failing to pay her appropriately for all of her accrued vacation time.
Quoting from the complaint:
- On O 1/31/2014 Ms. Maurino became an AEMT or Intermediate EMT and was immediately utilized by RRFR as an AEMT on the rescue. However, she was not officially paid, promoted, or job description changed/updated until 10/26/2017.
- Instead, Ms. Maurino was utilized as a “pilot program” lead to try running intermediate led ambulances, while not being trained or paid as an Intermediate.
- In or around February 2017, Ms. Maurino bid Station 5 in an attempt to work on promoting to Engineer. Station 5 had an average amount of calls, so it would allow Ms. Maurino more time to work towards this promotion.
- One of the other members of the crew… [told the captain] that he did not want to room with her because she is a woman.
- The captain then began to make arrangements to place Ms. Maurino “on a cot in the hallway.”
- This was brought it to the attention of the deputy Chief Paul Bearce and Chief Michael Meek.
- Instead of moving the man who refused to share a room with a woman, Ms. Maurino was moved from Station 5 to Station 10, without her consent.
- This appeared to be, and felt as though it was, a punishment, and was clearly because of her sex, and made it appear that she was “a problem” to other management and Ms. Maurino’s peers.
- The call volume at Station 10 was significantly higher than the call volume at Station 5, which allowed significantly less downtime for Ms. Maurino to train and work towards her promotion to engineer. This significantly slowed her promotion to engineer.
- Ms. Maurino still managed to complete the Engineer training at Station 10 while running the pilot program, but more slowly than she would otherwise have been able to do.
- In or around 2018, Ms. Maurino wrote a two-page proposal to the department suggesting the department send two people a year to paramedic school instead of implementing intermediate rescues to mitigate the staffing problem.
- RRFR implemented her suggestion, but instead of selecting her, RRFR sent two male intermediates with less seniority to Paramedic School.
- In 2019, Ms Maurino again applied for the opportunity to go to Paramedic School.
- Again, RRFR selected two male employees with significantly less seniority than Ms. Maurino and sent them to Paramedic School.
- On her own, Ms. Maurino found an alternate program, passed exams and interviews and was selected by UNM for that program.
- In July 2019, RRFR gave Ms. Maurino an ultimatum. She was told she could either promote to Engineer or go to Paramedic School. Ms. Maurino chose to attend paramedic school.
- At the time this ultimatum was given there were two MALE Paramedic Engineers in the department.
- Maurino completed Paramedic school in August 2020 and was immediately placed on Rescue 10.
- As the Paramedic she was in charge of directing other personnel on scene to perform various tasks.
- Beginning around January 2024, RRFR began discussing plans to change the way they respond to medical calls.
- Instead of sending an Engine and a Rescue unit to respond to 911, RRFR proposed to stop sending an Engine to 90% of the medical calls.
- Ms. Maurino was vocally opposed to these changes because she believed it would dangerously impact patient safety. There would no longer be any supervisor on 90% of medical calls, and the chances that the responders were inexperienced and insufficiently able to meet medical needs would be extremely high.
- In addition, the potential for injury to responders was significantly higher. Two people carrying a patient is significantly harder than four people, which increases the risk of on-the-job injury.
- Even if an actual paramedic was one of the two responders, they would inevitably be placed in the position of supervising the response, but would not be properly compensated as a supervisor.
- On information and belief, RRFR is or has moved forward with implementing this new procedure after terminating Ms. Maurino.
- On March 8, 2024, Ms. Maurino was approached on duty and given a target letter that was vague and did not give any details surrounding the investigation. She was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
- When placed on administrative leave, employees are typically given the option to work or stay home. Ms. Maurino was not offered this option and was told she must report towork.
- At Station 1, Ms. Maurino was assigned a series of humiliating and degrading chores.
- For example, she was tasked with cleaning and organizing the logistics storage room, cleaning out and organizing the logistics shed, moving fire hose from one area of the bay to another area of the same bay and delivering various non-essential items to every station in the city of Rio Rancho.
- These tasks felt designed to parade Ms. Maurino around her coworkers and humiliate her.
- While on Administrative Leave, without any explanation, Ms. Maurino’s accrued leave hours were changed from approximately 900 hours of annual leave time, to only 500 hours of annual leave.
- On April 1, 2024, she was assigned the cleaning and organizing of the outdoor logistics shed, while it was snowing and only 33 degrees.
- On April 17, 2024, [Ms. Maurino was tasked] with moving a pallet of fire hose from one area of the bay to another area of the bay.
- In the 11 years of her employment at RRFR, Ms. Maurino had never known of, or witnessed anyone on administrative leave being subjected to such clear humiliation in front of their peers.
- On the evening of April 29, 2024, Ms. Maurino submitted a charge of discrimination with the New Mexico Human Rights Bureau.
- The investigation summary report was purportedly completed and signed on April 5, 2024, over a month earlier, yet Ms. Maurino had continued to be required to work administrative time and was still assigned publicly humiliating tasks.
- This report ignores the enormous amount of evidence in Ms. Maurino’s favor, instead only taking into account evidence against her.
- At the termination meeting, Ms. Maurino, through her counsel, enquired as to the final pay for Ms. Maurino, thereby constituting a formal demand for wages due.
- On information and belief, after her termination, Ms. Maurino was paid out only 500 hours, not 900 hours, and was cheated of at least 400 hours of annual leave time.
- Ms. Maurino’s illegal termination from RRFR has made it more difficult for her to find other employment in her field.
Here is a copy of the removal notice and the original complaint: