Day-Care Center Defends Its Dismissal of Reservist : Employment: Company says nurse’s leave was voluntary, and she failed to return on specified date.

A Santa Ana day-care center, under legal attack for firing a nurse who had just returned last month from active duty in Germany with the National Guard, defended its actions Friday by saying the woman showed up for work two days later than scheduled.

But attorneys for Capt. Debra M. Simpson, 35, of Tustin, labeled that explanation a poor excuse for the firing and said the company’s action was a gross violation of federal and state laws protecting the jobs of activated reservists.

Simpson filed a civil lawsuit Thursday in Orange County Superior Court against Kangaroo Kids Center for Fragile Children and its owner, Care Visions Corp. of Santa Ana, claiming that she was wrongfully fired Oct. 3 for supposed “abandonment of her position.”

Simpson, a pediatric nurse and administrator at the center for seriously ill children, had returned Oct. 1 from a month of active duty with the Army National Guard in Nuremberg, Germany. Her attorneys say she was called into duty to replace medical personnel who had been reassigned to Operation Desert Shield after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2.

National Guard officials say federal law forbids civilian employers from firing or demoting people called to active duty by the U.S. military. They add that Simpson is the first guard member or reservist in the state claiming to have lost a job because of call-ups during the Persian Gulf crisis. Her attorneys said they know of no case like it anywhere in the country.

Simpson was returning Friday from a two-week stint with the National Guard in Tennessee and could not be reached for comment. She is to appear at a press conference today at her attorneys’ Westminster office.

One of her attorneys, Thomas L. Brown, said at a press conference Friday: “I’m surprised that any personnel office would allow something like this to happen.” He called Simpson’s firing “grossly against public policy.”

Officials at the Care Visions Corp. refused comment on the issue throughout much of the day Friday. But after repeated media inquiries after a story in the Times Orange County Edition, the company put out a statement defending its actions.

The statement said that Simpson’s assignment in Germany was a voluntary one that had been arranged in April, before the outbreak of the gulf crisis. And it said she was “due back to work on Oct. 1, but did not show up or call. This was a serious concern to us because of her critical role as the nurse administrator at the Center for Fragile Children.” Despite calls and a courier-delivered letter, she did not report back to work until Oct. 3, the company said.

Julia Bell, chief executive officer of Care Visions and a defendant in the lawsuit, refused to discuss details of the dispute, saying: “I can’t comment any further because we have not even seen the litigation.”

Brown maintained that Simpson had agreed before leaving for Germany that she would return to work Oct. 3, not Oct. 1. As for the terms of her departure, Brown said Simpson initially volunteered to go to Germany on assignment for a month but got new orders on Aug. 6, four days after the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Iraq.

“As of Aug. 6, she no longer had a choice,” Brown said. “They (National Guard officials) sent her a new set of orders to let her know that this was no longer a voluntary situation because of the nature of events.”

While Care Visions indicated in its statement that it did not believe Simpson’s deployment was mandatory, Brown said the distinction was meaningless.

“Whether it was voluntary or involuntary doesn’t make any difference. Federal and state law is still the same--they can’t terminate her,” he said.

Before her dismissal, Simpson had worked for Care Visions for about seven months as a pediatric trauma specialist and administrator at its Kangaroo Kids Center, Brown said.

Several weeks ago, Care Visions closed out a deal selling its controlling interest to Newport Beach-based Secomerica Inc., which is the United States arm of the Tokyo-based Secom Co.

Simpson’s lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, claims that she has tried repeatedly to regain her former position at the child-care center and has been unable to find other work.