State worker settles suit with DHHS
LANSING – A Michigan Department of Health & Human Services employee has settled her lawsuit against the department, in which she alleged state officials discriminated against her because she has multiple sclerosis.
Becky Harte, a 39-year-old DeWitt woman who’s worked for the state since 2000, will receive a cash payment as part of the settlement, her attorney, Pinckney’s Jim Fett, said Friday. She also will leave her job with the state.
Fett said Harte is on paid administrative leave until the paperwork is wrapped up, “which was very big of” DHHS officials, he said.
Complete details of the settlement, including the amount of the cash payment, weren’t available Friday because the settlement was still going through the approval process at the state.
But Fett called the settlement “a win-win situation” and said the case was “resolved in the best interest of both parties.”
Disability worker: DHHS punished me for having MS
DHHS spokesman Bob Wheaton declined to comment on Friday because the settlement had yet to receive final approval.
Harte, who worked as a disability examiner, had originally sought $1.3 million from the department in her Ingham County suit. She accused her managers at the department of denying her multiple promotions because she had MS and said they hassled her over medical leave and other issues. Twice, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled evidence supported her claims.
In court filings, DHHS officials said Harte was not promoted because more qualified candidates were chosen instead and called her other claims of discrimination “speculation and conjecture.”
From fall 2004 through fall 2014, Michigan state government paid a total of $349.8 million in court settlements and losing judgements, according a state Senate Fiscal Agency report this summer. The human services agency paid about $13.6 million of that total.
Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley.Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup.