St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
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ST. LOUIS — A former medical billing clerk has filed a lawsuit against the Lincoln County Ambulance District, a supervisor and board members, saying she was wrongly fired for speaking out about the suspension of another employee.
Dorothy Balaban, 56, of Troy, Mo., filed the lawsuit Tuesday in federal court. It says the district’s chief financial officer, Mia Farmer, was suspended for fighting with a union which had the backing of the district board. Balaban spoke to a Post-Dispatch reporter in support of Farmer, and Balaban was fired after an article quoting her appeared in the newspaper in March.
Balaban’s lawsuit says her right to free speech was violated. She is seeking unspecified damages.
Neil Bruntrager, an attorney for the ambulance district, said Wednesday that he had not yet seen the lawsuit, but “the fact that she spoke out regarding Mia had nothing to do with her being discharged.”