A former service adviser who was replaced after several hospitalizations has sued a Kalamazoo, Mich., dealer group for disability discrimination and violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Heather Crummel’s suit, filed Dec. 21, accuses Maple Hill Auto Group of illegally discharging her without warning while on medical leave and without showing the leave posed any problems for the store. The company has Subaru, Hyundai, Volvo, Volkswagen, Genesis and Audi franchises.
Owner and general manager Jim VandenBerg told Automotive News he couldn’t comment on the case.
The store hired Crummel as a service adviser in October 2017, and she was initially hospitalized in early 2019, according to the complaint. Maple Hill notified her that she was eligible for medical leave under FMLA, and she used it several times before her December 2019 termination, it said.
The month before the termination, management gave her high job performance marks, saying she was the service team’s sales leader for “inspection usage” and second in “sales dollars off inspections,” the suit said. It also said she’d received positive reviews from service department customers.
Her replacement began working on the same date Crummel had been medically cleared to return to the job, it said.
The suit, which seeks reinstatement and damages, contends Maple Hill could have accommodated her disability by granting her request for an extended medical leave.
Her lawyer, Channing Robinson-Holmes, said Crummel “was a valued employee until she began experiencing health issues and needed medical leave.
“At that point, Maple Hill viewed her as a problem and, amazingly, told her she didn’t in fact need the medical treatment her physicians proscribed. Crummel deserved better from her employer,” Robinson-Holmes told Automotive News in an email.