Former Longtime Caltech Employee Alleges Age Discrimination, Retaliation

A longtime Caltech employee terminated in 2023 is suing the institution, alleging Monday she suffered retaliation for complaining about being “demeaned, demoralized and harassed”  in the workplace and because she sought accommodations for her hearing impairment.

Linda Donnelly’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges wrongful termination, retaliation, age discrimination, hostile work environment, failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation and failure to take part in the interactive process and provide reasonable accommodations.

“Defendants failed to promptly and thoroughly investigate allegations of discrimination, harassment and environmental violations and instead proceeded to retaliate against Ms. Donnelly,” according to the complaint.

The plaintiff was “demeaned, demoralized and harassed” due to her age and disability and treated different than younger employees, the suit states.

Donnelly is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in the suit brought June 7. A Caltech representative said the private research university does not comment on active litigation.

Donnelly, 64, has a birth-related hearing impairment. She worked as an administrative assistant for 20 years and had no disciplinary issues until a new business manager of optical observatories was hired in early 2020 and targeted the plaintiff because of her age and hearing problems, the suit alleges.

Caltech condoned and ratified the manager’s “reprehensible behavior” and Donnelly was not provided accommodations to help her hear better when talking by phone, even when the institution closed during the coronavirus pandemic and ordered employees to work from home, the suit states.

Instead, Caltech took punitive action against Donnelly due to her disability that included the manager administering her a written work warning and delaying a scheduled salary increase, the suit states.

“This malicious and arbitrary disciplinary action was not supported by Caltech’s guidelines and policies, was contrary to the reality of Ms. Donnelly’s work for Caltech and was designed to force Ms. Donnelly to resign from her position at Caltech,” the suit states.

Donnelly’s doctor placed her on medical leave in January 2022 for six weeks and when she returned, the manager assigned her a burdensome, time- consuming task with a time deadline and a needed closed-caption telephone was not provided to the plaintiff, the suit states.

Donnelly went on another physician-approved leave of absence in December 2022, returned a year later and was terminated, according to the suit, which further states that the plaintiff was told that Caltech management was “no longer confident that (Donnelly) could successfully carry out her responsibilities as an administrative assistant.”

Donnelly has lost income and suffered emotional distress due to losing her job, the suit states.