Neuropsychiatry/Neurodiversity-Involved Litigation Specialists?

March 11, 2018 9:54 AM

Hello Metafilter. I am a philosophy major who works at The University of Chicago Library (and did my undergrad here) but recently was forced to work with a supervisor who I strongly believe to have been a clinical psychopath. She has a documented history of 'breaking' subordinates. One of whom I have made contact with.

I need initial referrals for lawyers who can entertain recovery from the damages of having been forced to work for such a menacing and naturally occurring form of the human connectome. Complicating matters I discovered during this process (at age 38) that I am likewise another variant of the human connectome: I am an autist.

I believe that the individual I find objectionable shows all the classic red flags of a clinical psychopath including the human wreckage left in her wake. I can provide further details but have been told she is known to be litigious, and can not only not afford to suffer damages myself in this process, but am currently homeless. I am employed however, so I have a limited capacity to engage this project. I hope we can begin to lay out case law and norms for an affirmative duty to avoid exposure to psychopaths in the workplace.

posted by Redag to Law & Government (17 answers total)

That's not how law works. It sounds terrible, but what did this person actually do to you?
posted by kevinbelt at 10:12 AM on March 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm not familiar with what you mean by the human connectome but based on my own experience getting more involved with people who are trouble is never worth it, and walking away has always been the better (and at some point necessary) choice. Whatever is going on here, I would, if I were you, work on walking away from now rather than getting more entangled in it.
posted by sockermom at 10:31 AM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Harassed me with constant beliefs that I was goofing off which had no actual role in the performance deficits she was seeing which instead were about intrinsic autism "executive function" concerns which I did not learn until about midway though this entire process. Under her pressure I applied for Long-Term Disability which the University's underwriters declined as my autism (as all connectomal conditions are, had always been with me) thus I was bounced back to the UofC. She was hyperpolicing me for something that I /knew/ how to describe after learning of my autism. But this individual radically presumed I was a liar even though a basic autism google will show you that we are typically rather honest. And I think the other victim I am in contact with may have other complaints.

I was also under the belief that these concerns were due to an ishemic stroke, but only initially as ischemic strokes produce only transitory symptoms. I do appreciate that this is a difficult case to make, but the truth is it "sounds terrible" is a weapon on its own, and one I am no longer averse to.
posted by Redag at 10:36 AM on March 11, 2018

Response by poster: sockermom: I would concur but I have lost my housing and need some immediate debt relief for debts incurred during Peek Psychopath for which I need relief to survive for that other day and next fight. Dispositionally I am /very/ conflict averse.
posted by Redag at 10:39 AM on March 11, 2018

You may have a case for being discriminated against due to a disability, but you're not going to find a lawyer to help make it illegal to employ mentally ill people.
posted by xyzzy at 10:39 AM on March 11, 2018 [16 favorites]

Suggest contacting a moderator about removing specific location info from your post and making this anonymous. Seems like it would be easy to identify you and her from what you’ve provided.
posted by FencingGal at 10:42 AM on March 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted; Redag, AskMe isn't a space for discussion or back-and-forth, just let folks answer as they will and you can choose the answers that seem most useful to you. Other commenters: the suggestion about what OP shouldn't/can't do has been made already, so now let's stick to referrals to lawyers/relevant experts who can work with OP in more depth to help them figure out their options.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:54 AM on March 11, 2018

I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice to you, merely a discussion.

I agree with FencingGal re: anonymization.

My understanding of the caselaw is that there is little to no basis for the claim you describe. Depending on several factors--including whether she or the institution understood that you were disabled--you might (or might not) be able to make a case under the ADA for failure to accommodate your disability. But please understand that this will not lead to any sort of immediate monetary relief for you. Even a successful case, even a case where they settle quickly, will take years. I can't tell you whether that is worth it or even feasible to you.

It sounds as if you still work for the institution in another capacity? If that's the case, and if you haven't previously done so, you should contact your HR office (I'm leaving out the link, but googling your institution I easily found contact information for this purpose, so you should be able to as well) to talk about getting accommodation in your present situation.

If you want to proceed with an ADA suit, you need to find an employment lawyer who works on contingency (that's what you would google for, if you get no better suggestions). Leave the neuro- angle out of it. I unfortunately can't recommend anyone; maybe someone else here can. You don't have a lot of time to act, as, in order to bring an ADA case, you generally must have first filed a complaint with the EEOC within six months of the discrimination. You don't have to have a lawyer to file such a complaint, and if your time is running out, you may need to file one pro se just to preserve your claims. But you should be very clear with yourself that, if you are still employed there, filing such a complaint is likely to mean the end of your employment there for one reason or another. If I were in what seems like your rather precarious life situation, I would think hard about that first.

It sounds like you are somewhat drawn to this as an intellectual puzzle, which as a lawyer I certainly understand, but the actual process of litigation is about 85% suffering and drudgery, 15% intellectual, if that. You need to focus on whether you can get accommodation or money while not trashing your career, not on whether you can build precedent.

Good luck.
posted by praemunire at 11:03 AM on March 11, 2018 [20 favorites]

Response by poster: praemunire: thank you, your comments are robust. Sadly My back is against the wall and I do not have reasonable access to the resources you describe, despite enjoying white privilege and those attendant benefits. I am also clearly out of EEOC time-range. I have tried to survive this and I am dramatically failing.

Do you have a distinct point to pivot to? Asking of desperation. And yes, back at the UofC.
posted by Redag at 11:50 AM on March 11, 2018

Agree with everything praemunire wrote.

IANAL; IANYL; I do work at a university.

If you are currently enrolled as a student at your university, contact Student Disability Services.

If you are currently working at your university, contact the Staff and Faculty Assistance Program located in Human Resources.

It's fine for you to contact both if you are currently a student and also an employee at the university.

I can't quite tell whether or not you have a care provider who has given you a diagnosis and with whom you're working on a regular basis to process and manage everything. If you do have someone, this person should be your go-to, number-one, first-stop resource; make an appointment with them right away to describe what you've experienced, explain your plan, and get their advice for how best to move forward.

If you do not currently have a regular care provider, both Student Disability Services and the Staff and Faculty Assistance Program can help you find someone, and usually at little or no cost to you. Good luck.
posted by pinkacademic at 11:55 AM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

If you're still a student, there should be a free legal clinic on campus. Search for something like "student legal services [your school]". Present it as a disability issue, i.e., that this person did not sufficiently accommodate your autism.

But again, don't get your hopes up too much. Even if you do have a case (which it's still not clear you do), it will take a very long time to prove, and there's a good chance it will not result in any sort of monetary compensation for you.

For reference, I know someone who was hospitalized for a psychotic episode after her dissertation advisor suggested she stop taking her medicine for bipolar disorder. That case never even got the point where a complaint was filed. It's a pretty high bar.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:59 PM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

My further advice wouldn't be legal. If you don't already have one, you need to find a care provider (through your institution?) to help you manage whatever emotional or intellectual crisis you're having. And, since it seems very likely that it's affecting your work, you do need to make sure your employer understands that you are disabled and require some accommodation. That's a conversation I'd have after I'd had thorough discussions with my care provider about what I'd likely need to succeed at my present job. Losing that job would be hard for you to recover from.

In the meantime, don't be too proud to take advantage of services available to homeless in your area, to the extent they're useful to you. You may feel as if you don't belong in that stratum of society or that it's shameful to need that kind of help, especially if any of the indoctrination practiced on students at the school where you were an undergrad took, but you have to be as practical as you can be to get yourself housed and stable again. Those services are, or should be, for everyone, and there is no shame to using them, if they can be of practical help. (Sometimes they're not.)
posted by praemunire at 2:05 PM on March 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

Best answer: I am going to nth that fighting a legal case is an uphill battle both emotionally and likely financially. Tier 1 universities typically contain many abusive employees in positions of power. I don't think there is a clear way for you to win this battle.

Further, even if this legal battle did work out in your favor, it would take many months. Please focus your hunt on getting stable housing and therapy. I wish you could get justice, but it seems unlikely, especially in a timely manner to help you find housing.
posted by Kalmya at 3:29 PM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

need some immediate debt relief

IAAL but not your lawyer. Lawsuits are not a way to get money quickly; they often take years, and even a case that moves quickly will usually take many months.
posted by insectosaurus at 6:08 PM on March 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

OK, I have some semi-helpful advice here. I hope.
One, look into getting an EBT card ASAP (food stamps). I don't know how much Illinois expanded access to this resource, but it has helped me greatly in times of need (aka all the time). Not having to worry so much about eating helps to stabilize you in other areas. There are some restrictions if you are a full-time student, I believe. It might be that if you are a full-time student, you have to be working a minimum of 20 hours a week in order to qualify. Double check that, though.
Two, I have filed a complaint for employer discrimination with the EEOC. My employer, literally, texted me that he was planning on telling all of my coworkers that I wanted to "grab them by the pussy." (Presumably as a way to humiliate me.) This was TEXT BASED EVIDENCE from HIS PHONE NUMBER. I got fired for "spilling water while mopping", the same day I told my sexual harassing boss to not touch me. The EEOC rejected my complaint that I was fired based on gender and sexual harassment, even though I had hard evidence. Additionally, I have an Ivy-league diploma, and the job itself was easypeasy. Clearly, I was not fired for being inept. And yet, the EEOC did not support me. So, with this all in mind- it is REALLY hard, even with HARD EVIDENCE, to get the EEOC's support.
It also took nearly a year to reach that outcome and the cost was significant. It hurt my family and was emotionally exhausting.

Considering that you believe this person is a psychopath, they will NOT accept any kind of investigation into their work and character without an ugly, ugly fight. Any kind of repercussions against this person, especially if your actual name were involved, will be highly, highly, hiiiighly unpleasant. It will probably hurt you more in the long run to attempt to seek justice, validation, or public vindication. This is your decision, but at an old therapist of mine would say, "You can choose to try to deal with this difficult person, or go around them." It sounds to me like you should probably channel your energies into meeting your immediate needs right now. If you are still hurting, and it sounds like you are, consider seeking professional help to work through what happened. You cannot un-psychopath a psychopath, especially if psychopath does not want to un-psychopath. Odds are, you might run into or have to work with someone like this again at some point in the future. How will you deal with it? I would focus on healing, self-preservation, and strategizing how to deal with this going forward. As for me, I had some pretty serious post-sexual-harassment trauma, which I've been working through in therapy, and at my new workplace, where my managers have been pretty supportive and understanding. "Exposure therapy": keep working, recognize potential triggers, and realize that you can redesign the framework at your job. One psychopath your career does not make.
Re white privilege: last I checked, tons and tons of white people rely on welfare, and it is neither a value sentence, a death sentence, or a life sentence determining that you will be on welfare indefinitely. It is a tool, and a tool that anyone needy deserves, regardless of their race, gender, creed, childhood privilege, etc. Privilege is not a fixed line; it is a bumpy, ever-changing field. You can have never gone hungry as a kid- privilege- and yet still go hungry as an adult. It's ok. You're ok. Sounds like this work experience has been a pretty strong catalyst for some self-reflection, and while it seems like it was painful and shitty, something good came out of it in the sense that you identified that you had some unmet needs, which you can now more adeptly manage.

In a nutshell:
1. self-protection, self-promotion, self-care
2. learning who to avoid / who is safe
3. one person does not determine your existence, its meaning, your meaning, your trajectory
4. this one person can be shitty, and seems shitty. "We are punished by our sins, not for them"- Elbert Hubbard. I always think of this when people are shitty. It sucks more to be the shitty party than to be the one getting hurt, even though pain is pain and pain is awful. Pain means you're human.
5. the EEOC probably will not assist you in any meaningful way here. however, maybe make some anonymous comments in a safe setting about former boss so this shit can at least be on someone's radar without you getting thrown under the bus.
6. you deserve wellness. do not be ashamed to seek it.

Ok, I hope this is helpful. All the best. I am sorry this is happening to you.
posted by erattacorrige at 6:42 PM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

It sounds like you are in a very tough spot. I've had to deal with a similar situation in my work past and did a little research at that time. Unlike Canada, the US does not have any laws against workplace bullying, unless that bullying is related to a form of discrimination. Even then, it's a difficult road. I think trying to find a different job, maybe just a different department, would be a less painful option.

One thing I'd recommend is that you edit your original post so that you are more anonymous. Designating your university, department and your major seems a bit risky.
posted by mulcahy at 8:12 PM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

I work at a similar institution. I've been in your shoes. I've also been a union steward representing people who've been harassed by their supervisors, including cases where the grievant also retained an attorney and filed a suit.

What I've learned:

1. The institution's reflexive action is to protect its higher-ups. She outranks you, they will focus on defending her. In fact, if you could get a look at her personnel file in HR, odds are very good that it's thick with similar reports - and yet, she's still employed there.
2. The institution has attorneys on payroll, so they don't care about the cost or length of litigation. But you care, because going through the litigation mill takes a serious emotional toll, and you/your attorney can't afford to keep fighting beyond a certain point.
3. The typical outcome is either to move the complaining party to a new job/boss (which is often deliberately something far worse than the original situation), or to offer a tiny cash settlement to make them shut up and go away.
The large settlements you read about in the news are rare, which is why they make the news. The usual settlements, especially after the attorney gets paid, won't support you for more than a few months at best.

You're angry and upset and you have cause to be. But realistically, pursuing this is not going to gain you much more than a whole lot more stress. If you find a lawyer, you might end up with a few thousand dollars, but it's highly unlikely that you'll get a substantial sum, nor that this person will end up demoted or fired. Because, again, it's highly unlikely that you're the first person she's mistreated.

In my own case, the offender had a higher-up protecting her - but so did I. So I ended up being transferred, sweetened with a promotion plus an anonymous phone call that literally began, "You don't know who I am, but I was told to tell you this. is crazy and admin knows it. Someone wants to make sure you know they know." That made me feel a lot better.
Two years later, her protector retired, and the institution wasted no time letting her go. But that's a rare outcome.
posted by Lunaloon at 9:54 AM on March 12, 2018 [2 favorites]