The lawsuit claims that in April 2024, one month after SEPTA reinstated Martin\u2019s employment on Injury on Duty status, she was required to submit to an independent medical evaluation. Martin says that the medical examiner provided by SEPTA determined she had \u201cfully recovered\u201d and directed her to return to work in May.\n<\/p>\n
This is in opposition to what Martin\u2019s treating physicians determined, she claims, who said that she \u201cremained disabled and specifically could not work in the subway environment where she had witnessed the homicide.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
SEPTA representatives denied her an opportunity to move to a different position, the lawsuit claims, and refused to place her on Injured on Duty leave again following the medical examiner\u2019s ruling.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than engaging [Martin] in an interactive dialogue regarding accommodation of her medical restrictions, SEPTA engaged in private internal discussions about her request and then denied it without notification or explanation,\u201d the lawsuit reads.\n <\/p>\n
She was then fired on Dec. 17, 2024 for exhausting her sick leave, the lawsuit claims.\n<\/p>\n
Martin says that the required evaluation and its use to justify her termination \u201cconstituted a breach of the collective bargaining agreement,\u201d which led her to file her second grievance.\n<\/p>\n
However, after it was denied on April 21, following a hearing with union and agency representatives earlier in the month, she claims that union officials were hostile toward her and her claims.\n<\/p>\n
During a meeting with union officials on June 9, Martin said that she was asked several questions about the homicide and \u201cwhy she had taken pictures and whether she had ever seen dead bodies before,\u201d further claiming in the lawsuit that the representatives \u201cquestioned the seriousness of [Martin\u2019s] disabilities and medical conditions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Union agents\u2019 questioning of [Martin] was designed to and did intimidate, humiliate, and discourage [Martin] from pursuing her legal rights and SEPTA\u2019s violation of her rights under the CBA,\u201d the lawsuit reads.\n<\/p>\n
The union declined to pursue the grievance further in June, which she claims was \u201carbitrary, discriminatory, grossly negligent, and in bad faith.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Martin is requesting to be reinstated to her position, with back pay and benefits and future lost earnings. She\u2019s also seeking an unspecified amount of punitive damages and damages for emotional distress.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lawsuit claims that in April 2024, one month after SEPTA reinstated Martin\u2019s employment on Injury on Duty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[758,69,71,70,19964,2618,2563],"class_list":{"0":"post-41938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-gun-violence","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news","12":"tag-ptsd","13":"tag-septa","14":"tag-transport-workers-local-234"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}