Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Allan Fletcher has disclosed that a former CUC employee who is suing him, CUC, and several others was terminated for offering to sell illegal drugs.<\/p>\n
Fletcher, through counsel assistant attorney general David Lochabay, denied that plaintiff Zaji O. Zajradhara was terminated from CUC on pre-textual grounds.<\/p>\n
In Fletcher\u2019s answer and defenses to Zajradhara\u2019s lawsuit, Lochabay said the plaintiff was discharged for, among other things, attempting to sell a controlled substance to another while in a CUC vehicle.<\/p>\n
Lochabay said Zajradhara was constantly complaining and that his complaints had no merit.<\/p>\n
He said plaintiff\u2019s many complaints were investigated and appropriately resolved.<\/p>\n
Lochabay asked the U.S. District Court for the NMI to hold Zajradhara liable to pay Fletcher attorney\u2019s fees as his suit \u201cis frivolous, unreasonable, and\/or without foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lochabay said Fletcher\u2019s decisions in this matter were governed by legitimate nondiscriminatory purposes.<\/p>\n
Lochabay said Zajradhara failed to comply with the directions and internal rules and regulations pertaining to his duties and those of other employees.<\/p>\n
The plaintiff has filed a lawsuit after he was allegedly subjected to a hostile work place, such as placing a cockroach on his desk and other employees calling him \u201cgay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zajradhara is suing CUC, Fletcher, and 10 unnamed co-defendants for whistle blower\/wrongful termination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the Americans with Disability Act.<\/p>\n
In a pro se complaint or filed without a lawyer, Zajradhara asked the court to hold the defendants liable to pay him damages and court costs.<\/p>\n
The plaintiff said CUC initially hired him as a trades technician\/operator in October 2012, but he was moved into various positions, including warehouse man, fuel handler, and trouble shooter for the water division.<\/p>\n
He said that CUC terminated him on Oct. 24, 2014, on the pre-textual ground of possession and conveyance of illegal drugs, in violation of CUC drug and alcohol policy.<\/p>\n
Zajradhara said during his employment, he became aware of various violations of public policies, laws, regulations and policies committed by the defendants.<\/p>\n
Zajradhara said at the work place, a racially offensive poster was placed, a cockroach was put on his desk, and employees called him \u201cgay\u201d and other slurs.<\/p>\n
He said defendants succeeded in terminating him on Oct. 24, 2014, by accusing him of trying to sell marijuana to an off-duty police officer.<\/p>\n
Zajradhara also claimed he suffers from disability as he has post traumatic stress disorder, bi-polar disorder, and an injury to the right upper shoulder, and upper back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Allan Fletcher has disclosed that a former CUC employee who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,1946,410,259],"class_list":["post-206136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cuc","tag-david-lochabay","tag-drugs","tag-lawsuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}