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Former Lakin Law Firm attorney Jeffrey Millar of St. Louis is suing the Wood River, Illinois-based firm for unpaid salary, class action fees and punitive damages in excess of $500,000.
He claims Brad Lakin and his law firm, now called LakinChapman, breached contract by failing to provide 90 days written notice of his termination, as required by an employment agreement.
Millar was terminated on December 29th.
The suit alleges the defendants falsely accused him of excessive absenteeism and faltering work performance so that it could “use these claims as a pretextural excuse to terminate Millar” and avoid increased costs of medical coverage for him and his son.
Allegedly, Millar’s son has an extremely rare medical condition requiring extraordinarily expensive care. This raised the rates of the entire firm’s health insurance plan through Aetna.
The firm switched group health insurance to United HealthCare in 2007. Millar says the firm knew the new insurance would adversely affect his child’s care.
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After Millar threatened to sue the insurer, UnitedHealthcare began to cover his son in February 2008 at “considerable additional expense to the group health plan.”
Millar claims that on December 30th, the Lakin firm terminated four additional employees of the firm without cause or justification.
“Upon information and belief, these employees were also discharged for exercising their rights under the provisions of Defendants’ group health plan,” the complaint states.
Since he did not receive proper termination notice, Millar claims the terms of his employment agreement remain in full force through 2009, entitling him to $126,465 in salary and fees generated in class action cases.
