Woman fired by boss after donating kidney to help her
A US woman was fired not long after donating a kidney to help save her boss' life.
It's rare to see an employee and a boss get along so well, but Debbie Stevens said it was just part of who she was, when she stepped up to help save her manager Jacqueline Brucia back in 2010.
Much like running a Burger King solo for 12 hours, you would hope that such a generous act would be remembered, but it turned into a nightmare for Debbie when she later lost her job.
“I decided to become a kidney donor to my boss, and she took my heart," Debbie told The Post aback in 2012.
Advert
“I feel very betrayed. This has been a very hurtful and horrible experience for me. She just took this gift and put it on the ground and kicked it."
Stevens, who was 47 at the time of the interview, first met Brucia when she started working at Atlantic Automotive Group in Long Island back in 2009, and after a brief hiatus, she returned to the office a year later.
She discovered that Brucia needed a kidney transplant and mentioned that she would be willing to donate. Shortly afterwards, Stevens contacted Brucia about the possibility of being re-hired, and she was assigned to help Brucia with clerical tasks.
According to Stevens, Brucia said in January 2011: "My donor was denied. Were you serious when you said that?’ I said, ‘Sure, yeah.’ She was my boss, I respected her. It’s just who I am. I didn’t want her to die."
Although Stevens wasn't a direct match for Brucia, she was able to participate in a swap programme, where she donated her kidney to someone who needed it Missouri, while Brucia's replacement kidney arrived from San Francisco.
“I felt I was giving her life back," Stevens said.
However, after the surgery, Stevens had health complications and says she was pressured into returning to work. On one occasion where she left work early due to feeling unwell, she received a call from her boss.
“She said, ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you at work?’ I told her I didn’t feel good.
“She said, ‘You can’t come and go as you please. People are going to think you’re getting special treatment.’”
That was just the start for Stevens as she allegedly went on to lose her overtime opportunities along with some of her work responsibilities, and was eventually demoted to a dealership 50 miles away.
"She just started treating me horribly, viciously, inhumanly after the surgery," Stevens told ABC News.
"It was almost like she hired me just to get my kidney."
Stevens was eventually fired in 2012, with the company citing 'performance deficiencies'. She claims she was given no written warning and was not placed on a performance improvement plan.
The same year, Brucia's husband told the New York Post Stevens' claims were 'far from the truth' and added: "She didn't fire anyone."
Stevens' legal team filed a lawsuit against Atlantic Automotive Group in 2013, with the case being settled confidentially the following year.
The company never admitted to Stevens' claims that she was fired due to illness following the kidney donation.
LADbible has contacted Atlantic Automotive Group for a comment.
James Moorhouse