Ex-Worker Alleges Bias in Suing Tustin Firm

A Laguna Niguel woman is suing her former employer, claiming her boss fired her because she took a three-week medical leave last year after an abnormal pregnancy and miscarriage.

Kimberly Reece, 31, is suing Lyon Financial Services in Tustin and its president, Richard Lyon, for damages, claiming Lyon discriminated against her because of her gender and her pregnancy in violation of state anti-discrimination laws.

She is asking for an unspecified amount in damages for lost wages and emotional distress.

Lyon declined comment Tuesday when contacted at his home-improvement loan company and informed of the suit, which was filed in Orange County Superior Court.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said.

Reece claims in the lawsuit that Lyon warned her when he hired her as a loan officer in May, 1994, that he did not want any employees with financial or medical problems.

That fear kept her from taking time off to see a doctor for almost two weeks when she first started having symptoms--cramping and vaginal bleeding--of an abnormal pregnancy, her attorney, Gary Bennett of Santa Ana, said.

She was later rushed to Riverside Medical Clinic because of severe cramps and bleeding and was diagnosed with a tubal pregnancy, in which a fertilized egg implants itself in a Fallopian tube rather than the uterus. She required emergency surgery, during which she lost the fetus.

Bennett said other women in the office warned her to keep the pregnancy a secret. “It was explained to her that if ‘Dick Lyon finds this out, you’re toast, you’re gone,’ ” Bennett said.

Two days after a three-week convalescence that was ordered by her doctor, Lyon fired her, the lawsuit said. Lyon first told her, immediately after she returned to work, that he was putting her on a 30-day probation for errors in her work but declined to discuss the errors, according to the lawsuit. But the next day he fired her, saying he needed to reorganize the company, the lawsuit claims.

“She was absolutely devastated by this,” Bennett said. “The company didn’t seem to care much about her physical condition.

“No one even asked how she was doing. They were more concerned about the inconvenience to their business than her health and welfare.”

Bennett said Reece had been a good employee. According to the suit, Reece also had worked for Lyon for eight months in 1993. Lyon had asked her to work for him again in 1994 because of her “outstanding work ethic and abilities,” the suit says.

Bennett said Lyon’s justification for Reece’s firing--the need to reorganize the company--was false because after her termination the company advertised for candidates to fill a loan officer position.