She Didn't Make the Cut

This could be the beginning of a dark thriller. A nursing home worker wears a knife concealed under her closing. The employee is part of a group that requires the knife to be worn at all times. A number of mysterious deaths occur at the nursing home.

But no, the thriller turns into a more mundane drama of the EEOC v. the Nursing Home for denying a baptized Sikh from wearing a kirpan. A kirpan is a ceremonial knife worn by Sikhs as a religious symbol. It is not used to cut feeding tubes or terrorize co-employees. Somehow, the nursing home management, perhaps due to an onset of contagious dementia, felt that it had to make the workplace safe from all knife wielding employees, and so allegedly gave Baljit Kaur Bhandal an ultimatum, shed the knife, or shed the job. She elected the latter, and sued her employer for constructive termination based on religious discrimination.

Currently, the matter is just a suit, but the EEOC says the Nursing Home acted with malice, and deserves to be punished. Stephen King could have much more fun with this than the EEOC.

EEOC v. Heartland Employer Services, LLC, No. 08 CV 00460, complaint filed E.D. Cal. Sacramento, Feb. 28, 2008.


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