ST. LOUIS – Charter Communications LLC filed a notice May 11 to remove a former employee’s discrimination complaint from St. Charles County Circuit Court to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The filing said that the diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff, who resides in Missouri, and Charter Communications, a Delaware company with its principal place of business in Stamford, Connecticut, gives the federal court jurisdiction. Charter also noted that the matter in controversy exceeds $75,000, which also gives the court jurisdiction.
Bryan McCulloch filed the suit in circuit court against Charter, manager Terry Bechel, manager Jamie Clark and human resources manager Stacey Hager on April 2, alleging that the company discriminated and retaliated against him in violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA) when they terminated him in January 2017. McCulloch also accused the company of failing to pay him overtime wages in violation of the Missouri Minimum Wage Law.
According to the notice, McCulloch had been an employee since 2004, first as a broadband technician and then a system technician. It also states that he suffers from mental conditions, including anxiety, panic attacks and schizoaffective disorder. He is asking for back pay, fringe benefits, front pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages and “damages for past and future mental anguish, inconveniences, loss (of) quality of life, and pain and suffering.”
Charter noted that McCulloch had received an annual salary of $46,966.40 and that he alleged lost wages in the amount of $62,611.92.
“This is not even taking into account plaintiff’s alleged lost benefits,” the notice said. “If trial were to take place one year from now, plaintiff’s claim for alleged lost wages alone would be approximately $109,658.36.”