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strongly disagreed with Marlene’s plan to regulate land use and
cattle grazing in an effort to preserve native plant species at the
Monument.^4 During that year, Marlene and her new supervisor
engaged in a series of heated interactions.^5 In one incident, when
she attempted to explain her position to him, he repeatedly
yelled, “Did you hear what I said?”^6 The next day he continued
to shout at her in front of other employees.^7 Marlene later wrote
that she “felt like a bully had just beaten [her] up,” and she was
so upset that she vomited.^8 Another time, her supervisor
threatened her when he blocked her on a narrow road with his
truck, exited the vehicle, and told her that she had “brought this
on herself.”^9 Despite having a previously spotless employment
record, after another conflict, her supervisor suspended her for
five days without pay.^10 Even worse, Marlene appealed the
suspension, but was denied.^11 In less than a year, Marlene
received five written reprimands.^12
While Marlene was once a healthy individual,^13 during the
last year of her life she lost forty pounds, grew anxious and
depressed,^14 and took prescription tranquilizers and sleeping
pills.^15 When Marlene requested medical leave for the first time
(^4) Julia Cart & Maria L. La Ganga, Suicide Casts a Shadow on
Conservation Battle, L.A. TIMES (Aug. 20, 2005), http://articles.
latimes.com/print/2005/aug/20/local/me-carrizo20.
(^5) OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GEN., supra note 1, at 6.
(^6) KAMuston, supra note 2. Marlene privately documented conflicts with
her supervisor in a thirty-five-page chronology, including instances of being
“yelled at.” See Cart & La Ganga, supra note 4.
(^7) KAMuston, supra note 2.
(^8) Id.
(^9) An Act Concerning Bullying in the Workplace: Hearing on S.B. 60
Before the S. Comm. on Labor & Pub. Emps., 2008 Leg. (Conn. 2008)
[hereinafter Hearing 2008] (statement of Katherine Hermes, Workplace
Bullying Inst.).
(^10) KAMuston, supra note 2; Cart & La Ganga, supra note 4.
(^11) KAMuston, supra note 2.
(^12) Id.
(^13) Id.
(^14) See Hearing 2008, supra note 9.
(^15) KAMuston, supra note 2.