St. Louis County Animal Care & Control (ACC) is being accused of gender discrimination, racial discrimination and sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed by a former supervisor.
Amanda Zatorski, who was hired in December 2019 as the animal population manager and terminated a year later, sued St. Louis County in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County 21st Judicial District on Jan. 13.
“During the course of her employment, Ms. Ryan was subjected to unlawful gender discrimination in the form of unwanted and offensive comments and touching by a supervisor; reported unlawful acts of gender discrimination and sexual harassment of female ACC employees by a male ACC supervisor and reported unlawful acts of racial discrimination by the ACC director,” wrote Zatorski’s attorney Mark Pedroli in the complaint.
A professional dog trainer, Zatorski also accuses ACC of engaging in unlawful retaliation against a public employee in violation of MO. REV. STAT. §105.055.3.
“There were numerous things that they did, among them would be that they extended her probationary period during the time that they were trying to get her to support the privatization and then, of course, they terminated her at the end of that probationary extension but she had great marks, got along with everybody and was doing a terrific job,” Pedroli told the St. Louis Record. “She was turning the numbers around. The euthanasias were down. All of the objective numbers at the shelter were doing better under her term.”
As previously reported, the county is at the tail end of negotiations on a contract with a nonprofit that would acquire the shelter.
“They didn't let my client know this before they hired her and I think they knew that she opposed privatization, however, when she was frank with them about her opinions, I don't think they liked her opinion, wanted her to change them and become the public face of the privatization effort,” Pedroli said. “She refused to do it and, in fact, spoke out against it.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that an audit determined the facility concealed a kill rate of the animals that is high.
“The worst case for the animals is they don't get adopted, they don't get cared for and they die in the ACC,” Pedroli added. “The other scenario is the whole issue with owner-requested euthanasia. People were bringing in their pets and they were making them check the box that they didn't know was automatically going to euthanize the animal that they brought in. They were fooling people.”