Worker Donates Kidney For The Boss–Then Gets Fired

Job security is hard to find in this economy even under the best of circumstances, but if these allegations are true, we have found a ghastly new definition of no good deed goes unpunished.

An employee of a Long Island, New York, car dealership donated a life-saving kidney for her boss, who showed her appreciation by sending the worker packing according to the New York Post.

Debbie Stevens says that after becoming a kidney donor, her boss “took my heart” as a result of this kind of extreme form of office politics.

In legal papers filed with the state’s Human Rights Commission, Stevens, a former employee of Atlantic Automotive Group, says that she suffered various health complications following the kidney surgery, but her boss got mad at her for taking a few sick days.

The boss, Jackie Brucia, 61, also demeaned her in front of other workers over alleged mistakes. Stevens claims she was later demoted and transferred to a dealership internally referred to as “Siberia” some 50 miles away from home. Her lawyers sent the company a letter on her behalf and she was apparently terminated soon after.

Stevens also claims that she felt pressure to return to work before she was ready, even while Brucia was allegedly still recuperating from her own transplant.

The slight twist to the story is that Stevens, 47, a divorced mom with two kids, was not an exact match for her boss. So she agreed to donate her left kidney to a Missouri man so that Brucia could move higher up on the transplant waiting list. Brucia successfully received another kidney from a San Francisco-area donor.

Stevens’ lawyers plan to file a discrimination lawsuit against AAG in civil court in addition to the pending administrative complaint.

AAG has not yet commented on the legal filing but Brucia’s husband has denied the allegations according to the Post article.