Part 9: Preferred Employers Insurance Company – A Case Study of a Corporation Gone Wrong

All through the rest of July 2010, Daryl was supposed to be working on the response to Chrysti Corkill’s DFEH complaint. At some point he had met with Linda Smith and informed her what was going on.

On August 4, 2010, Daryl complained to me about a phone call he’d just had with Josephine Raimondi, who is the corporate attorney for W.R. Berkley. This surprised me, because I knew it had to be about the DFEH Complaint and Daryl didn’t want corporate involved.

However, Daryl told me Linda Smith wanted him to contact W.R. Berkley and when he did, Josephine Raimondi reprimanded him for the delay in contacting her about the DFEH investigation. Daryl was angry that Josephine had gotten angry with him. Daryl said Josephine was “pushy” and “demanding” and that she was ”just sitting around waiting for something to do.” He complained how she had reamed him about the poor handling of Chrysti’s first FMLA leave, the fake one.

I could see that the DFEH investigation had him very worried and that it was becoming a bigger issue than he wanted. He was angry at Linda Smith and complained to me that the delay had been her fault and that he was going to call Rob Stone, Linda Smith’s boss, about it.

Elizabeth Koumas, PEIC’s local attorney, was also involved at this point. She called the DFEH on August 5, 2010, and requested a two week extension to complete PEIC’s response to Chrysti’s complaint. (A DFEH employee scrawled a note about her call).

On August 12, 2010, Daryl emailed me asking for the records of all employee leaves for the previous two years. I gathered the information for him and emailed it to him. That same day, Daryl and I had a discussion in his office that turned very heated.

He told me he had met with Linda Smith and that he told her he “took full responsibility,” tapping both shoulders with his hands as though he was shouldering all of the blame, about the Chrysti Corkill episode. But with his manner and tone, I knew he had laid the blame on me.

He wasn’t telling me that he told Linda it was his fault; he was telling me he was taking full responsibility because he was the manager of the department.

I said, “As well you should,” meaning that we both knew he had screwed up. This really struck a nerve with him and I knew I was exactly right about my suspicions. He asked me to close his office door. This is when the discussion got heated and personal.

Everything blew up at this point. We re-hashed the Chrysti Corkill episode, again, and how he had screwed it up because he refused to listen to me. He then told me these things:

“You have two things against you: you’re in HR and you’re a woman.”
“The company didn’t go out and ask you to get all the schooling you have.”
“You won’t be able to move up in the company as long as Linda is President.”
“There’s not going to be much more for you to do with the company in your position.”

And he repeated that he ”knows the law.”

Within a day or two of this discussion, Daryl asked me for the files I had on Chrysti Corkill and took them all away. I always kept the medical folders of employees on leave locked up in my desk drawer. We referred to these as the “pink files.” Chrysti’s pink file contained her initial FMLA application, her initial medical certification, and her initial FMLA approval letter, and any related doctor’s notes; her FMLA recertification forms; her FMLA paperwork for herself which included her doctor’s notes of February and April, her FMLA application, her medical certification, her conditional FMLA approval letter and then her FMLA approval letter; my handwritten notes about my discussions with Chrysti; plus the fake notes Daryl asked me to put in the folder about his phone conversation with Chrysti; all emails with her intermittent schedules and emails between she and I while she was out on continuous leave; The Standard STD paperwork; EDD Disability form; Certification of Health Care Provider for Family Member’s Serious Health Condition; correspondence between Chrysti and me in reference to the required documents I needed from her to put her out on FMLA leave; Certification of Physician or Practitioner for Employee Return to Work.

After Chrysti’s file was taken away from me, I was never asked to meet with Linda or Daryl on the Chrysti Corkill DFEH case. Something was clearly going on because Daryl and Linda were meeting frequently, but no one came to me and asked anything about Chrysti’s file. I was completely cut out.

It was unbelievable: I had handled all the paperwork pertaining to Chrysti’s leave, including the FMLA leave paperwork, the CFRA paperwork, her disability paperwork, and the FMLA re-certification. I had dealt with her in dozens of emails and letters, and I was the only one who could recollect the conversations with her that she and I had concerning her doctor’s notes and any other leave issues. I was also the only one who could verify and audit all the hours she took for her leave. In her file were all my handwritten notes of the conversations she and I had, plus there were those notes I had made when I was asked to witness the final conversation between Chrysti and Daryl on April 9, 2010. I had been her chief point of contact throughout her leaves, fake and real.

Yet no one ever sat down with me, put Chrysti’s file in front of me, and asked me questions about it. Not Linda Smith, not Elizabeth Koumas, not Josephine Riamiondi; and later, when W.R. Berkley got involved, not even Carol LaPunzia, or the hired investigator, Sheryl Willert.

Next week: Part 10 – The Big Chill

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