Attorneys & Counselors at Law
A Hancock County woman who worked at Portland radio stations for 38 years claims in a lawsuit she was fired illegally after she refused to return to working in the stations’ office during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Randi Kirshbaum, 68, of Southwest Harbor sought an accommodation to work from home on her…
The state paid $395,000 to settle a lawsuit on behalf of a corrections officer who said she endured a hostile work environment because of her gender and sexual orientation while working at the Maine State Prison and Bolduc Correctional Facility. Autumn Dinsmore, who filed the lawsuit in July 2021 in federal court in Bangor, resigned…
The state has agreed to return unemployment benefits it seized from about 50 incarcerated workers at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic . . . . “The purpose of the work release program and unemployment benefits is to ensure incarcerated people have access to financial security and employment when they return to their communities,” said…
U.S. District Judge Lance E. Walker ruled Tuesday that Northern Light Acadia Hospital violated the Maine Equal Pay Act by paying Dr. Clare Mundell less than her male colleagues for comparable work. Per the ruling, the hospital now owes her triple damages for lost wages, totaling over $200,000, according to Portland law firm Johnson, Webbert…
An appeals court in Boston will decide if Gov. Janet Mills violated an inmate’s constitutional right to due process when she seized his unemployment benefits during the pandemic without a hearing. … Marc Sparks, 36, of Bucksport was one of 53 prisoners who received nearly $200,000 in unemployment benefits because they had been laid off from work…
U.S. District Judge Lance E. Walker said in a Monday order that the NRA and InfoCision may have violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act if they used automatic dialers, or ATDs . . . . According to Travis McEwen, the NRA called him over 66 times after he allowed his membership to lapse in 2018…
The former parks and recreation director of Saco has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the city. Joseph Hirsch worked for the city for 25 years, including 13 as the department head. His complaint, filed Tuesday in York County Superior Court, says the city abruptly forced him to retire in October 2017 without giving him any notice…
A Deer Isle nursing home is requiring employees to not disparage the home if they want retention bonuses ahead of a planned late-October closure and rejected strategies from the state on ways to stay open. The Island Nursing Home was the first of three facilities to announce they would be closing by the end of…
A female corrections officer has filed a federal lawsuit against the state that says she and other women have experienced “severe and pervasive” sexual harassment and discrimination during their work in Maine prisons. Autumn Dinsmore, 26, now works at the Bolduc Correctional Facility in Warren. She first filed a complaint to the Maine Human Rights…
According to the complaint filed in Cumberland Superior Court, Mark Opio, who is Black, worked for Whole Foods in Portland for more than eight years altogether, from 2007 until 2015, and then again from Dec. 2018 through Oct. 2019, which a Whole Foods Market spokesperson confirms. Opio says he was scheduled to interview for a…