NY security guard files lawsuit for being fired for sleeping on the job
Bronx NY March 31 2018 A Bronx security guard says he has been living a nightmare he can’t wake up from ever since his employer canned him for sleeping on the job.
Audie Delacruz, 46, filed a lawsuit last week against Allied Universal Security Services, accusing the firm of wrongfully terminating him over his disability — sleep apnea.
His lawsuit says his bosses accused him of snoozing on the job and telling him “every client that you go to, you’re putting a black eye on us.”
When they fired him, one of his supervisors took a cheap shot at him, saying, “I’m going to get some Scotch Tape to hold your eyelids open,” according to the lawsuit.
Delacruz said that his bosses were wrong about him grabbing Z’s on the job. He said they only spotted him catching winks in a locker room during his lunch break.
“Mr. Delacruz is part of a protected class with a well-known disability, sleep apnea,” his lawyer, Jeffrey Risman, said.
“He was punished for taking advantage of a lunch break to rest and recharge. Instead of accommodating Mr. Delacruz’s disability, Allied terminated and humiliated him.”
Delacruz has been a security officer for 25 years — and spent nearly a decade working for Allied.
His job included guarding posts, checking visitors’ belongings or suspicious packages, and acting as a rover.
In 2013 he provided a doctor’s note to Allied’s human resources department, informing his employer of the sleep apnea and explaining the condition.
But on July 21, 2017, he was found resting during his lunch break in a locker room. The lawsuit says that Allied has no rule prohibiting sleep on a break.
Still, the shut-eye didn’t sit well with his bosses, Jose Diaz and Robert Garcia. They accused him of being inattentive on the job.
They also knocked his sleep apnea, saying that he didn’t have narcolepsy and “therefore should not be falling asleep while at work,” the lawsuit says.
Risman said Delacruz was given no warning about napping during his lunch break. Yet he was fired on July 26 — five days after the incident.
“Mr. Delacruz was and remains extremely distraught with how his termination played out,” Risman said.
“He was in the business of protecting individuals, yet the company he devoted nearly a decade to failed to protect him.”
He referred to New York City’s Human Rights Law, which bar employers from firing any worker over a disability.
Delacruz has been unable to find work since getting the axe, Risman said.
