What happens when a dream job turns into a nightmare after a cancer diagnosis? Join Mark Carey and his co-host as they unravel the shocking case of Leah Lando, a veteran news anchor who faced brutal discrimination and retaliation while undergoing cancer treatment. Leah’s story is not just a personal battle; it highlights a toxic work culture that can exist in even the most prestigious organizations. After being heavily recruited by Scripps Media, Leah uprooted her life for what she thought was a golden opportunity, only to find herself in a hostile work environment marked by exclusion and interrogation about her medical condition.
This episode dives deep into the systemic issues of discrimination that plague workplaces, particularly focusing on gender and age discrimination, as well as the devastating impact of retaliation when employees are vulnerable. Leah’s experience serves as a crucial reminder of the importance of employee rights and the need for companies to foster a supportive culture, especially for those undergoing serious health challenges like cancer treatment. The hosts dissect how management, particularly the station manager, not only failed to provide reasonable accommodation but actively worked to build a case for Leah’s termination while she was undergoing treatment.
As they navigate the legal implications of Leah’s firing, the discussion also sheds light on broader patterns of workplace discrimination that affect older women and individuals with disabilities. The court found Leah’s claims plausible, emphasizing the critical need for employee advocacy and awareness around workplace rights. This episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating employment disputes, especially those dealing with cancer treatment or similar challenges. Tune in for insider tips on negotiating severance, understanding employment contracts, and recognizing the signs of a toxic workplace culture.
Whether you’re an employee fighting for your rights, an advocate for workplace change, or simply someone interested in the intersection of health and employment law, this episode of the Employee Survival Guide® is packed with essential insights. Discover how to empower yourself in the face of adversity, understand your legal rights, and learn how to navigate the complexities of employment law. Don’t let discrimination define your career—join us as we explore the vital steps to ensuring a healthier work environment for everyone.
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Disclaimer: For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice.
Transcript:
Speaker #0
Hey, it’s Mark here and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about and a lot more.
Speaker #1
Welcome to the Employee Survival Guide produced by employment attorney Mark Carey.
Speaker #2
Glad to be here for this one.
Speaker #1
Yeah, we have a really intense one today. So I want you to imagine landing what looks like the… absolute dream job. Like you are recruited heavily.
Speaker #2
Right. They’re really chasing you.
Speaker #1
Exactly. You uproot your entire family. You sell your home in a city you love. And you do all of this based on an ironclad promise from executives that you are going to retire there.
Speaker #2
Which is huge.
Speaker #1
That’s a massive life change.
Speaker #2
It’s a massive change.
Speaker #1
You think you are completely set for the rest of your career. And then the unthinkable happens. You’re diagnosed with a rare cancer.
Speaker #2
Oh, wow.
Speaker #1
Yeah. But instead of rallying around you, or just, you know, offering basic human decency, your workplace environment suddenly turns completely toxic.
Speaker #2
It’s just wild how fast it shifts.
Speaker #1
It really is. And it all culminates in this shocking termination while you are literally sitting in the cancer center for a medical appointment.
Speaker #2
Honestly, it sounds like the plot of a corporate thriller, but it is the stark reality detailed in the legal documents we are exploring today.
Speaker #1
Yeah, we are looking at an amended, verified complaint. And a federal court decision in the case of Leah Lando v. Scripps Media Inc.
Speaker #2
And the details are just, they’re staggering.
Speaker #1
Our mission today is to explore these highly dramatic factual allegations purely from the employee’s perspective. We really want to reveal the dark patterns that some employers use to get rid of unwanted employees based on sex, age, and disability.
Speaker #2
We’re basically opening up their playbook.
Speaker #1
Exactly. Because with facts this dramatic, the big question for us today is, What was this employer thinking they could get away with here?
Speaker #2
Seriously. To understand their mindset, I mean, we have to look at the timeline because it reveals just how many different justifications the employer tried to layer on top of each other.
Speaker #1
Right. To make it look like a standard, neutral business decision.
Speaker #2
Exactly. So let’s start with who Leah Lando is. We are talking about a 48-year-old female veteran news anchor.
Speaker #1
She brings like over two decades of experience in the news industry to the table.
Speaker #2
Yeah, she is highly established. And in May 2022, she gets hired by WKBW-TV, which is a script media station in Buffalo, New York.
Speaker #1
And taking that job, it was a massive life disruption for her. She ends her contract in Rochester. She sells her family home and moves.
Speaker #2
You definitely don’t do that on a whim.
Speaker #1
No, you do that because station leadership, specifically the news director and the general manager, are making these explicit promises that she is going to have a long career and retire in Buffalo.
Speaker #2
Which really establishes her incredibly high value to the station at the time they hired her. I mean, they wanted her enough to convince her to completely uproot her life.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #2
And according to the complaint, the honeymoon phase was real. She was the evening anchor, getting extremely positive feedback on her performance. Everything was going according to plan until about April 2023.
Speaker #1
And that is when Lando is diagnosed with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, or CTCL. It’s a rare form of cancer, and it obviously requires her to take intermittent time off for treatments and doctor visits.
Speaker #2
Naturally.
Speaker #1
Now, if you are listening to this, you might assume that if you get a scary diagnosis, your HR department and your boss are going to sit down and talk about reasonable accommodations.
Speaker #2
That’s what should happen.
Speaker #1
But the immediate shift in her employer’s behavior here is just startling.
Speaker #2
Yeah, the complaint alleges this swift and, frankly, brutal transition to a hostile work environment. And this was allegedly spearheaded by the new station manager, Leanne Markin.
Speaker #1
And she doesn’t just ask how Lando is feeling, right?
Speaker #2
No, not at all. According to the lawsuit, Markin begins constantly questioning Lando about her medical condition after almost every single day she takes off.
Speaker #1
That sounds exhausting.
Speaker #2
It gets worse. She goes as far as interrogating Lando’s co-workers about Lando’s cancer and her appointments, demanding specific, highly uncomfortable personal information.
Speaker #1
It’s literally like a predator smelling blood in the water. I mean, it’s like an insurance adjuster looking for a pre-existing crack in the foundation of your house so they can deny your claim.
Speaker #2
That is a perfect way to put it.
Speaker #1
They aren’t checking in on her health. They are surveying for liabilities so they can build a case for demolition. But why do employers default to this kind of invasive interrogation rather than simple support?
Speaker #2
Well, because an employer knows they cannot legally fire someone simply for getting sick. That is… blatantly illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Speaker #1
Right. They need a loophole.
Speaker #2
Exactly. So if the employer views this new medical reality as a burden, they have to construct a different reason to push the employee out. They start building a pretextual case.
Speaker #1
And how does that actually work in practice?
Speaker #2
Well, by constantly scrutinizing the employee’s physical presence, questioning their whereabouts, and prying into their medical specifics, management basically accomplishes two things.
Speaker #1
Okay, what are they?
Speaker #2
First, they manufacture a paper trail of… perceived unreliability or absenteeism. And second, they make the employee feel like an absolute burden to the team.
Speaker #1
Which is incredibly isolating.
Speaker #2
I mean, it’s basically psychological warfare disguised as a manager just checking in.
Speaker #1
Yeah, exactly. So they are building this paper trail of unreliability. Does it stay passive aggressive or does it like escalate?
Speaker #2
Oh, it definitely shifts into active isolation. Lando alleges she was suddenly excluded from what they call skip line meetings and promotional campaigns.
Speaker #1
Which is a big deal for an anchor, right?
Speaker #2
A huge deal. For an evening anchor, being the face of the station is the core of the job. So excluding her from promotional campaigns is a deliberate degrading of her standing in the company.
Speaker #1
You cut them out of the visible parts to diminish their perceived value.
Speaker #2
Exactly. Because later on, that makes it so much easier to turn around and say, well, she wasn’t that critical to our operations anyway.
Speaker #1
But if you are the employee sitting in the middle of this, it has to be incredibly confusing because of the mixed signals being sent, right?
Speaker #2
Oh, totally. The lawsuit points out that while station manager Leanne Markin is being outright hostile, the news director, Aaron Mason, is actively assuring Lando that her contract is going to be renewed.
Speaker #1
Wait, really?
Speaker #2
Yeah. And the head recruiter even leaves a voicemail praising how valuable Lando is to the station, promising other opportunities if she ever considered leaving Buffalo.
Speaker #1
Is the left hand just not talking to the right hand here, or is this intentional?
Speaker #2
Honestly, those mixed signals are actually a classic corporate stall tactic. When you get praise from recruitment and assurances from your direct director, but you are being iced out by the station manager, you are kept completely off balance.
Speaker #1
You just don’t know where you stand.
Speaker #2
And the employer benefits from this confusion because it delays the employee from taking legal action or looking for another job. You kind of hold on to that positive reinforcement, hoping the hostilities. Just a phase.
Speaker #1
Well, Lando doesn’t just wait around to find out. She takes action. On February 25th, 2025, she reaches out to human resources to formally complain that she is being discriminated against.
Speaker #2
Which is a crucial step.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And around the same time, she fills out an employee satisfaction survey. She explicitly names Leanne Markin and details the uncomfortable interrogations about her cancer.
Speaker #2
And by doing that, she is engaged in what the law calls protected activity. She has formally put the company on notice of alleged discrimination.
Speaker #1
But the response from the company is just, it’s breathtaking. Just over a week later, on March 4th, 2025, Lando is terminated.
Speaker #2
Just days later.
Speaker #1
Two months before her contract is even set to expire. But it’s not just the firing. It’s the shocking climax of how it happened. Let’s set the scene here.
Speaker #2
This part is brutal.
Speaker #1
Lando learns of her termination while she is actively attending medical appointments at Roswell Park Cancer Center. Management knew she was out for medical reasons that day.
Speaker #2
They knew exactly where she was.
Speaker #1
And Markin actually announces the firing to the entire station while Lando is sitting at the doctor’s office.
Speaker #2
The proximity between her complaint to HR on February 25th and her termination on March 4th is just a matter of days. In the eyes of the court, an adverse employment action following that closely on the heels of a protected complaint is the textbook definition of unlawful retaliation.
Speaker #1
It’s a glaring red flag.
Speaker #2
It raises a massive red flag that the firing was a direct punishment for speaking up.
Speaker #1
The sheer audacity of an employer standing up and announcing a termination to the company while they know the employee is sitting in a cancer center for treatment is stunning.
Speaker #2
It really is.
Speaker #1
It feels designed to be as humiliating as possible. It sends this chilling message to the rest of the staff like, this is what happens when you complain, regardless of your personal circumstances.
Speaker #2
But legally… You know, the employer cannot walk into a courtroom and admit it was retaliation. They desperately need a shield.
Speaker #1
Right. They need a cover story.
Speaker #2
Yeah. They need a neutral business-related excuse for why they let her go.
Speaker #1
Okay. Let me play devil’s advocate for a second here. Local news is struggling financially across the country. Broadcasters are losing ad revenue and layoffs are a very real part of the industry right now.
Speaker #2
That’s true. It is an industry-wide issue.
Speaker #1
So how do we know this wasn’t just a genuinely unfortunate budget cut that… caught her at the worst possible time, because the station claimed Lando was fired to save money as part of a company-wide layoff, asserting she was the least senior anchor.
Speaker #2
Well, if we look closely at the facts alleged in the complaint, that defense starts to look like a highly orchestrated shell game.
Speaker #1
A shell game?
Speaker #2
Yeah. Courts will look at who was retained and who was let go to see if the financial excuse actually holds water. The lawsuit points out that Michael Wooten, a 40-year-old male anchor, was hired after Lando. Yet, he kept his job. If seniority was the true metric, he should have been let go first.
Speaker #1
That’s a huge contradiction.
Speaker #2
And then there is the situation with Taylor Epps, a 25-year-old female hired in 2019. She had the same anchor reporter title as Lando.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #2
If the station is laying off the least senior anchor, you would think Epps is on the chopping block, or at least evaluated alongside Lando. And here is where the mechanics of that title shell game really come into play. Just one month before these layoffs, Markin changes Epps’ title to senior reporter.
Speaker #1
Just one month.
Speaker #2
Yep. However, according to the complaint, Epps continued doing the exact same anchor work despite the new title.
Speaker #1
Wow.
Speaker #2
The lawsuit alleges that this title change was orchestrated specifically to protect Epps from the anchor layoffs. If not for that perfectly timed title change, Epps, not Lando, would have been the least senior anchor.
Speaker #1
That is a blatant manipulation of the roster to protect a younger employee. But let’s look at this f***ing phantom financial crisis they claim necessitated the layoffs in the first place.
Speaker #2
Oh, this part is very revealing.
Speaker #1
They fire Lando on March 4th to save money. Exactly one week later, on March 11th, Markin creates two brand new internal positions. One of them is an executive reporter role paying $96,000 a year.
Speaker #2
Yep.
Speaker #1
How do you justify creating a $96,000 position seven days after firing someone for budget reasons and then handpicking a male employee for it.
Speaker #2
And the male employee handpicked for it was Adam Francis, who had also been laid off in that same sweep.
Speaker #1
Wait, he was part of the layoffs too?
Speaker #2
He was. And he was actively encouraged by the company to apply for this newly created, highly paid role. And he got it. This is a classic dark pattern. Employers will use a broad company-wide restructuring to bypass seniority rules.
Speaker #1
So they basically launder the termination.
Speaker #2
Exactly. They lay off the person they want to target alongside a few others to make it look legitimate. and then immediately create parallel highly paid roles to rehire the people they actually want to keep.
Speaker #1
And Lando actually sees these new jobs posted. She reaches out to the news director, Aaron Mason, and asks if she can apply.
Speaker #2
And what does he say?
Speaker #1
His response is, I don’t want to get too excited, but let me check. And then he completely ghosted her. She never hears back.
Speaker #2
Wow, just silence.
Speaker #1
To top it all off, WKBW removed Lando’s name from all of her past stories. The complaint notes this is virtually unprecedented. Reporters normally leave their names on stories long after they move on to other markets.
Speaker #2
But just standard industry practice.
Speaker #1
Erasing her name from old archives proves this wasn’t just a neutral business decision. It was vindictive.
Speaker #2
It really provides the court with a powerful lens into the employer’s discriminatory intent. When you look at the retention of a male anchor hired after her, the sudden title change to protect a 25-year-old anchor. The rehiring of a male colleague into a newly created role and the vindictive erasure of her work, the financial hardship defense completely collapses.
Speaker #1
So if you are listening to this and your boss suddenly starts changing job titles right before a rumored budget cut, you need to pay very close attention.
Speaker #2
Absolutely.
Speaker #1
Because the lawsuit alleges this wasn’t just an isolated incident of one bad manager acting out. It points to a systemic practice of undervaluing and replacing older women at this company. And the most glaring piece of evidence is the staggering pay gap.
Speaker #2
Oh, the pay gap is significant here.
Speaker #1
Lando discovers through her union representative that her male co-anchor, Jeff Russo, makes approximately $42,000 a year more than her.
Speaker #2
Let’s break down the timelines to see why that disparity is so legally significant. Lando has over two decades of news anchoring experience, starting right out of college in 2000.
Speaker #1
So she’s been doing this a long time.
Speaker #2
Exactly. Jeff Russo started with the company in 2003 as a sports anchor and didn’t even move to news anchoring until 2015.
Speaker #1
So their experience is entirely comparable, if not weighted in Lando’s favor when it comes to actual news anchoring.
Speaker #2
Right.
Speaker #1
How does an employer justify a $42,000 pay discrepancy for two people sitting at the exact same desk reading the exact same news to the exact same camera? Lando was making only 75% of his salary.
Speaker #2
That pay disparity? strongly anchors the gender discrimination claim. But the complaint goes further to show how the system specifically targets older women.
Speaker #1
Yeah, this isn’t a one-off.
Speaker #2
No, it cites the case of Joanna Passeri, another female anchor at WKBW, who was allegedly forced out at age 50 and replaced with younger talent. Meanwhile, her male co-anchor, Keith Radford, was allowed to stay until he chose to retire on his own terms.
Speaker #1
It paints an incredibly ugly picture of an industry that treats aging men as authoritative and aging women as disposable. Which brings us to a fascinating legal concept invoked in the lawsuit. Sex plus discrimination.
Speaker #2
This is such an important concept for people to understand.
Speaker #1
How does that function differently in a courtroom compared to a standard gender discrimination claim?
Speaker #2
Well, sex plus discrimination means you aren’t just claiming you were discriminated against simply for being a woman. You were claiming you were targeted because of an intersection of protected traits.
Speaker #1
OK.
Speaker #2
In Lando’s case, she’s a woman. Plus, she’s older. She’s 48. Plus, she has a disability, the cancer.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #2
The law recognizes that employers might not discriminate against all women. For example, the employer here could point to Taylor Epps and say, look, we protected the 25-year-old female anchor. We don’t hate women.
Speaker #1
I see.
Speaker #2
Sex Plus bypasses that defense. It allows the plaintiff to say you might not discriminate against young women, but you specifically push out older women or women with medical issues.
Speaker #1
That makes total sense. They can’t use the young female employee as a human shield against a discrimination claim when the data shows they are specifically targeting women over 45.
Speaker #2
Exactly.
Speaker #1
So all of this evidence, this entire shell game, went before a federal judge. The defendant, Scripps Media, filed a motion to dismiss the case, essentially telling the court that Lando’s claims were just vague and didn’t hold up.
Speaker #2
And Chief Judge Elizabeth A. Walters? Wolford strongly disagreed. The judge issued a decision denying the employer’s motion to dismiss the discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation claims.
Speaker #1
So it’s moving forward.
Speaker #2
It is. Judge Wolford ruled that Lando’s factual allegations are highly plausible and raise a reasonable inference of discriminatory motive.
Speaker #1
So the court saw right through the employer’s layoff excuse.
Speaker #2
They absolutely did. The judge noted that the combination of age, gender, and disability made Lando a specific target in an industry that Historically devalues older women.
Speaker #1
Wow.
Speaker #2
Yeah. The court highlighted that being interrogated about medical issues, excluded from core meetings and fired days after an H.R. complaint is more than enough evidence of a hostile environment and retaliation to proceed to trial.
Speaker #1
I do want to be thorough here and note that the judge did dismiss one single claim, the promissory estoppel claim. That was the claim regarding the promise that she could retire in Buffalo if she moved her family there. Why was that thrown out?
Speaker #2
To explain it simply, promissory estoppel is a legal claim you make when someone breaks a promise that you reasonably relied on, causing you harm.
Speaker #1
OK.
Speaker #2
But in New York employment law, you can’t sue an employer for breaking a promise if that promise was just the standard bait they used to get you to take the job in the first place.
Speaker #1
Oh, I see.
Speaker #2
The promise has to be completely separate from the employment relationship itself. Since the promise of a long career was the core reason she accepted the employment. It couldn’t stand as a separate legal claim. But the heavy hitters, the discrimination and retaliation claims, survived intact.
Speaker #1
That’s the main takeaway. If you are listening to this, you might be thinking that the facts of this specific news anchor story are uniquely extreme. And yeah, firing someone while they are literally sitting in a cancer ward is incredibly dramatic.
Speaker #2
Extremely.
Speaker #1
But the employer’s playbook here is something that happens in office parks, retail chains, and Zoom rooms everywhere. You know, sudden title changes for favored employees right before layoffs.
Speaker #2
Or intrusive questioning about a medical condition disguised as a manager just checking in.
Speaker #1
Exactly. Or using a broad company-wide restructuring to cover up a targeted retaliation against one specific person who had the courage to complain to HR.
Speaker #2
It is a stark reminder that documentation is your absolute best defense. Recognizing these patterns early, like when the mixed signals start and HR is… praising you, but your direct manager is isolating you, is critical. That is the moment to start keeping a meticulous record.
Speaker #1
And consider the employer’s vindictive decision to erase Lando’s name from her past news stories. It was an unprecedented move in their newsroom.
Speaker #2
A huge misstep on their part.
Speaker #1
Really, though, what does it say about corporate culture when an employer is so desperate to erase an unwanted employee’s legacy that in their rush to scrub her from the archives. They accidentally leave behind a perfectly documented, glaring paper trail of retaliation for a federal judge to find.
Speaker #2
It suggests that sometimes an employer’s arrogance and need for control is the very thing that undoes their carefully constructed legal defense.
Speaker #1
Such a powerful point to end on. Thank you for joining us today for this exploration of the Employee Survival Guide. Stay informed, protect yourself, and we’ll see you next time.
Speaker #0
If you like the Employee Survival Guide, I’d really encourage you to leave a review. We try really hard to produce information to you that’s informative, that’s timely, that you can actually use and solve problems on your own and at your employment. So if you’d like to leave a review anywhere you listen to our podcast, please do so. And Leave five stars because anything less than five is really not as good, right? I’ll keep it up. I’ll keep the standards up. I’ll keep the information flowing at you. If you’d like to send me an email and ask me a question, I’ll actually review it and post it on there. You can send it to MCAReY at CAPCLaw.com. That’s CAPCLaw.com.