Peabody's recently retired deputy fire chief has filed an age-discrimination complaint against the city and his successor in the position, saying he was subjected to harassment, insubordination and even "personal cruelty."
Paul Lynch, 65, retired at the end of May, after what he said was a "campaign of harassment" by Eric Harrison, who, Lynch charges, wanted him to retire sooner.
Harrison was sworn in last month as deputy chief.
"While I was scheduled to retire at the end of May 2012," Lynch and his lawyer wrote in the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination complaint, "I was living every day in constant distress about what Harrison was going to do next. Harrison's harassment of me had escalated such that I could no longer fully enjoy and participate in my workplace."
Lynch believes the campaign was an effort to force him to retire earlier than scheduled because Harrison, at the time a captain and a close friend of Chief Steve Pasdon, was expected to replace him.
"Harrison did not want to wait for me to retire to receive the job," Lynch alleges.
The complaint, filed last month with the MCAD and released Friday after a request by The Salem News, offers examples of Harrison's treatment of Lynch, who at the time was senior to him both in rank and in seniority.
During a funeral procession for a retired firefighter, "Harrison cruelly told me, 'You should have been in the box instead of (the other firefighter)."
Lynch said Harrison made an anti-Semitic remark directed at him and his girlfriend, who is Jewish, and "made statements to me such as, 'Why don't you just (expletive) retire?'"
During overtime shifts, Lynch said, Harrison failed to appear for radio testing, then when told he must do so, became insubordinate, "yelling and cursing at me." Lynch said Harrison taunted, glared and smirked at Lynch when passing him in the fire station.
In April, during a shift change, "Harrison harassed me ... making loud and obnoxious statements about me over the vocal alarm system, followed by smirks and taunts," the complaint says.
"By April 2012, I was at my wits' end," Lynch said in the complaint. He made a formal complaint to the Fire Department at the time, though he noted that at the time prior complaints against Harrison by other members of the department had not been followed up.
Lynch said the harassment "escalated" during his final two months on the job and that Pasdon "ostracized me" during that period.
Lynch, who joined the Peabody Fire Department in 1970, had been deputy chief for 25 years prior to his retirement.
He declined to comment on the case Friday, referring questions to his attorney, who was not available.
Efforts to get the Fire Department's and city's responses were unsuccessful.
Assistant City Solicitor Donald Conn said the matter has been referred to Kopelman and Paige, an outside law firm that is used by the city's insurance carrier to represent the city in some claims. A message left for that firm's principal, Leonard Kopelman, was not returned Friday.
A message left for Pasdon on Friday was also not returned.
Harrison was not on duty and could not be reached for comment at the fire station Friday.
Copyright 2012 - The Salem News, Beverly, Mass.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
