The Story of Kay Morris-Robertson
When British executive Kay Morris came to Los Angeles from London in the fall of 2007, she felt like she had the world on a string. She was rising in her career, taking on an exciting new job at the request of her prestigious employer, and happily in love. A year later it had all come crashing down and she found herself alone, traumatized, and held against her will in a police psycho unit through the machinations of the very company that had brought her to America, Westfield Holdings. Westfield Holdings is part of the $62 billion, Australian-owned Westfield Group (ASX: WDC), operator of some 119 shopping malls in the U.S., UK, Australia and New Zealand.
How this all could have happened is a question she still asks herself 10 months after leaving her job. To be fair, not all Morris-Robertson's misfortunes can be traced to her employer. It was a strictly personal tragedy when in June 2008, her new husband John Robertson - they had been married six months before - suddenly suffered cardiac arrest and died in her arms while the two of them were enjoying a day of sailing off Marina Del Rey. But the company was certainly responsible for the shocking and allegedly illegal mistreatment she received while she tried to cope with her loss and was eventually diagnosed with Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). At least, that is the assertion of a lawsuit filed on her behalf in Los Angeles Superior Court in December 2009.
"I can't stop asking myself over and over how the people I trusted so completely, who I moved across the world to work with, could have cared so little about what was happening to me, when they knew full well what was going on and why," said Morris-Robertson.
What was happening to Morris-Robertson is not unusual. In fact, according to National Center for PTSD at the Department of Veterans Affairs, seven to eight percent of the national population will suffer from PTSD at some point in their lives. More than five million American adults will suffer from the disability in a given year. Women are about as likely to suffer from it as men over the course of their lifetimes. And not all instances of PTSD are related to military or combat experience.
It is not hard to understand how Morris-Robertson could have become a victim of non-military PTSD. On a bright carefree morning in a sailboat off the coast of Southern California, she suddenly found herself trying to revive her dying, 31 year-old husband alone and far from help. It might, however, be hard for some to understand how her employer could have failed to grasp the seriousness of her condition, and not only failed to advise her of the medical options available to her under U.S. and California law, but instead threatened her job security, which only served to exacerbate her symptoms. Even after they were aware that she had been diagnosed with PTSD by a physician.
Kay Morris-Robertson began her career with the retail giant Westfield in her native United Kingdom in May 2006. Born near Manchester in 1974, she earned a degree in business from Leicester University and worked for Jarvis Ramada, Frito Lay/Pepsi and other corporate entities as she built her career as an expert in business efficiencies. She was so successful she opened her own consultancy firm. In 2006 one of her first clients, Westfield, recruited her to join their firm as Human Resources Information Services (HRIS) Manager. At Westfield she worked on numerous projects in the U.K. including the implementation of a new payroll system and new IT systems. Within a year, she was promoted.
While her career advanced, Kay Morris met her future husband, John Robertson, in Brighton in 2001. John had been born the youngest of three sons to British parents in Mt. Isa, Queensland, Australia in 1976. Following his family's return to Britain he joined the Royal Air Force in 1997. Trained as an engineer, he worked as a technician on the AWACs system and saw service in the Iraq War, Afghanistan, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Following his military service, John worked for the Siemens and Alstom transportation companies. He then joined Hitachi, where he assisted in the construction of the Javelin, the first bullet train in the U.K.
During their first years together Kay and John shared their love of travel by visiting countries and cities across the globe - Australia, South Africa, Spain, Hong Kong, France, Japan, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
In the fall of 2007 Kay relocated to Westfield's office in Los Angeles with the assignment to support the Finance group with business efficiency improvements. She and John moved to the United States and settled into a happy life in Southern California. Then one day her family back in England got a phone call. Kay and John were getting married in Las Vegas with an Elvis impersonator as the best man. Their families were thrilled. According to her brother Ian Morris, "We rolled out the red carpet and settled down at two in the morning in front of our webcams to watch my brother-in-law and sister enjoy one their happiest times together. To us it was like a Hollywood premiere and we all knew they were really happy."
Then in June 2008, on a carefree Saturday six months after their wedding, Kay and John went sailing off the California coast. Shockingly, without warning, John suffered sudden cardiac arrest. Alone and adrift far from shore with her young husband dying in her arms, Kay underwent a nightmare experience, the scars of which she has carried ever since. After a memorial service among friends and colleagues in Marina Del Rey, Kay took John's body back to England for burial.
Her personal life turned upside-down, Kay returned to California alone and resumed her executive position at Westfield. She threw herself into her work hoping it would help her cope. She excelled, was recognized for her achievements, and received a significant bonus from the company.
But something was wrong. She could not escape the traumatic experience of her husband's death. Her symptoms worsened, leading to her fainting at work on November 3, 2008. When she went to her primary care physician she was diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She began to procure prescribed medicines for her symptoms and immediately notified her Westfield supervisor by email. She also met with him personally and asked for assistance in meeting the demands of her job while coping with her condition. Instead of counseling Morris-Robertson of her legal options as an employee under the California Family Rights Act, he pressured her to meet company deadlines and directed her to travel to Ohio to lay-off Westfield employees in that state, surely a stressful assignment for anyone.
According to the complaint, on returning to work in January 2009 she "received a glowing performance evaluation and performance-related commendations." She also received a sizeable salary increase, a bonus, and an invitation to participate in the company's executive stock program. Yet when Morris-Robertson requested unpaid leave to which she was legally entitled, her Westfield supervisor's response was to feign ignorance of her condition and require further explanations.
Finally, in March 2009, while undergoing EEG and MRI testing, Morris-Robertson learned from her physician that there were programs in place in California to which she was entitled - programs her Westfield employers had never told her about even though they were aware of her condition four months before. Immediately, upon her doctor's recommendation, she scheduled an appointment with a PTSD specialist.
Two days before this appointment, she met again with her Westfield supervisor. "Given the apathetic posture on his part to date" the complaint reads, "she wanted to ensure (he) understood and appreciated the gravity of her condition." She even asked a colleague at Westfield to explain the symptoms of PTSD to her supervisor in advance. At the meeting, Morris-Robertson explained the symptoms of her condition, and provided her supervisor with objective materials describing the condition. She expressed her relief at finally finding a specialist who could help her cope with her condition.
In response, her Westfield supervisor threatened her job. According to the complaint, "He informed her that her previous absences had been noticed. He stated that other employees were "picking up the slack" for her work and suggested that she had been taking a "backseat" recently. He further explained that any future absences on her part could make it difficult for her to return to work with Westfield."
The next day, reeling from the treatment she had received from her supervisor, Morris-Robertson reached out to her coworkers at Westfield. Most were supportive. One, the national human resources manager in Australia, where Westfield is based, wrote that they "have an employee assistance programme that is external which you may also have over there. If there is anyone else in the HR team that you can lean on or can articulate too (sic) that may help."
That night, her condition possibly exacerbated by her supervisor's bullying, Morris-Robertson wrote some emails to friends in despairing terms. But when they wrote back expressing their concerns she explained she had only been venting. "Don't panic...read emails again carefully....I'm am OK...justa bit tired," she wrote.
The next day, however, her Westfield employers used these emails to send her into psych lockdown and keep her there.
That day, Morris-Robertson arranged for her friend and fellow Westfield employee Linda Mohan to drive her to her first session with her PTSD specialist. On the way, they stopped at the office of Westfield to retrieve Morris-Robertson's briefcase. While Morris-Robertson waited in the car in a nearby parking lot, Mohan was badgered by Westfield executives to call 911 and report Morris-Robertson as a threat to herself or others. According to the complaint, Mohan tried to talk Morris-Robertson's supervisor, Stanley Duncan, out of taking such onerous action, but he was not to be dissuaded. The police arrived and Morris-Robertson was taken off and detained in the Los Angeles psych unit. There she encountered various individuals suffering from mental illness, drug withdrawal, and any number of other stressful situations - the last thing to which someone with PTSD should be subjected.
Morris-Robertson had a chance of getting out. The city-assigned doctor interviewed her and deemed her no threat to herself or anyone else. She was thrilled, and due to be released. Then Westfield stepped in again in the person of the same Stanley Duncan, who provided the physician in charge with a highly selective recounting of Morris-Robertson's emails. As a result, she was kept in lockdown for eight days while her condition only worsened.
Upon her release, Morris-Robertson immediately left the employ of Westfield Holdings. Today she continues to try to manage her condition and rebuild her life. It is a daily struggle. She is a long way from where she was a few years ago when she was in love and had the world on a string. Part of that was unavoidable; no one could have known her beloved husband John was going to die so young and so suddenly. But part of it was completely avoidable. If only the people she worked for and looked upon as friends had helped instead of hindered her recovery.
The story of Kay Morris-Robertson is probably only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to employer mistreatment of PTSD sufferers, given the many military victims now coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. None of them should have to endure the abuse she received at the hands of Westfield executives.
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