A former NYU Langone employee is suing the medical center for disability discrimination, claiming that she had to resign after facing “retaliation” for taking medical leave in 2024 due to an illness that impaired her ability to walk.

Jennifer Yu, who became a senior financial analyst at NYU Langone Health in March 2020, suffered from an infection called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, which is commonly spread around health care settings and can pose long term threats such as sepsis and respiratory failure. Yu claimed that the hospital violated U.S. labor laws after giving her a negative performance evaluation and accusing her of poor attendance following her return from medical leave. 

In a statement to WSN, NYU Langone spokesperson Steve Ritea denied Yu’s claims. 

“NYU Langone believes Ms. Yu’s claims lack merit and that she was provided the accommodations and protected leave she requested consistent with our workplace policies and applicable law,” Ritea said.

Yu’s attorneys did not respond to WSN’s request for comment.

According to the lawsuit, Yu called out sick on July 31, 2024, due to an MRSA flare up. Five days later, she requested additional time to work from home because she had developed another infection, which required immediate medical attention. Her request was approved and the team continued with a remote schedule for the rest of the week, through Aug. 13. 

But at the end of September, Yu received her first negative performance evaluation, accompanied by a meeting where one of her bosses allegedly “falsely” accused her of joining meetings late. Yu said she had never been confronted about her punctuality until the evaluation. 

A few days later, Yu was told by her dermatologist to urgently go to the hospital because she was at risk of losing her left leg due to severe inflammation from the MRSA. After using a sick day to address the infection, Yu was advised to “take time off from work to seek additional treatment,” according to the lawsuit. Yu requested medical leave shortly after, which was approved until Nov. 1. 

Around Nov. 4, Yu returned from her FMLA leave while experiencing an upset stomach, loss of appetite and fatigue as side effects of the antibiotics she was taking. She received a disciplinary write up and performance improvement plan, which allegedly claimed that she took long lunches and joined meetings late. Yu said the claims were made without evidence. 

Yu was then put on probation for 90 days and allegedly threatened with termination at the end of the period. She said she was excluded from a “prominent fiscal year 2025 project” that involved a hospital merger for a team she had led over the past three years, and felt notably singled-out from her colleagues.

At the same time, Yu claimed her supervisors “overloaded” her with work and instructed colleagues to ignore and refrain from helping her. She was placed in charge of a new management application outside of her regular expertise, and when she asked for assistance, was allegedly told to “Google it and learn it on her own” multiple times

Yu was granted another medical leave late November, during which the application was allegedly left untouched until her return on Jan. 17, 2025. Yet, the original deadline — of later that month — remained in place. She claimed that she was assigned more work than her colleagues who were not disabled or sick, and was “forced” to regularly stay after hours to complete her tasks. She said she had “no choice but to resign” around Feb. 19, 2025. 

“Yu’s resignation constitutes a constructive discharge,” the complaint reads. “As a result of the foregoing, Yu has suffered financial damages, future damages, as well as severe emotional distress damages.”

Court records did not specify how much Yu is suing for.

Since the start of 2025, NYU Langone has faced at least eight disability discrimination-related lawsuits from current and former employees. At the end of August, a former physician’s assistant sued after she was fired via phone call following her Cataract surgery, and in July, another medical assistant claimed her employment and insurance was unjustly terminated while she was recovering from a car accident. In March, a former nurse was terminated one week after being granted long-term disability leave to undergo chemotherapy for a bone cancer diagnosis.

Contact Chantal Mann at [email protected].