A settlement agreement seems to be close for a former Loudon Elementary School employee who sued the Merrimack Valley School District and School Administrative Unit 46 for wrongful termination.
Both parties filed a joint motion on Wednesday to redact portions of the SAU’s answer to the former employee’s complaint, on the basis that the parties have reached an agreement to settle the matter, in principle.
Shelbee Hogan filed a lawsuit in March, stating that after a week-long medical leave in March 2024, administrators had called her into a meeting and told her she could either resign or be fired.
Hogan had worked as a building assistant at Loudon Elementary from 2019 to 2024, according to the lawsuit.
Hogan said that in 2023 she began experiencing significant medical issues including extreme dizziness and vomiting. Her condition was made worse by complications from a COVID-19 infection. She was diagnosed with cyclic vomiting syndrome in 2024.
Human Resources Director Kathleen Boucher told Hogan that “even with the FMLA, you are too unreliable,” according to the lawsuit. FMLA refers to the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Ultimately, Hogan resigned. In the court documents, she said she was told resigning would look better than being fired. She claimed the SAU wrongfully terminated her and retaliated against her in violation of the FMLA.
SAU 46 moved to dismiss the case, saying that it was not Hogan’s employer, therefore not the proper defendant in the case.
Hogan opposed the motion to dismiss and filed an amended complaint that named both the Merrimack Valley School District and the administrative unit as defendants.
The district moved to partially dismiss the complaint, while the SAU filed an answer stating that every action taken toward Hogan was for “legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons.”
The court has not yet ruled on the district’s motion to dismiss.
After the SAU’s answer was filed, Hogan, the district and the administrative unit reached an agreement, in principle, to settle Hogan’s claims and voluntarily dismiss the action.
Now, the only obstacles to reaching a settlement are 10 sentences of the administrative unit’s court-filed answer, which contains “factual allegations” that Hogan has denied. Both the plaintiff and the two parties she has sued are asking the court to redact the contested portion.
Hogan said having the allegations unchallenged in a publicly available document is highly prejudicial to her as a young person striving to start a career as a schoolteacher.
