The person who led the California team for Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign said she was demoted a day after undergoing cancer treatment.
Susie Shannon, who served as the campaign’s political director in the state, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday claiming that “outrageous and compassionless conduct” by the Vermont senator’s team led to her “forced resignation solely because she had the misfortune of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer that required major surgery to treat the disease.”
Micha Star Liberty, Shannon’s lawyer, told NBC News that her client declined to sign a non-disclosure agreement from the campaign in exchange for money and two months of health insurance. A spokesman for the Sanders campaign, Mike Casca, said, “We’ve not received this lawsuit, and we don’t comment on litigation.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified money damages.
The lawsuit says Shannon was diagnosed in September 2019, only months after accepting the role with the campaign, and she had “approximately 15 inches of tumors from the ovaries that extended into her abdominal area” that were removed on Oct. 7.
One day after the surgery, the suit says, Shannon got a phone call from Rafael Navar, the campaign’s state director, who said she had been demoted.
“Navar bluntly stated that he had no confidence in her ability to do her job given her cancer and surgery and that he was bringing in someone else to do her job,” the suit says. Shannon then went to Navar’s supervisor, Chuck Rocha, but Rocha “casually responded that he supported Navar in whatever decision he decided to make.”
The lawsuit says Shannon also reported Navar to the campaign’s human resources director, who “never did” address her concerns. The lawsuit also claims Navar “continuously scolded” and “undermined” her even after she performed her duties “fully and successfully.”
Navar denied the allegations, labeling them “completely false,” and said Shannon’s “position never changed.”
