Fired NUMC CEO Megan Ryan sues hospital months after dismissal

Nassau University Medical Center’s former CEO Meg Ryan sued the hospital and its executives, alleging a contract breach, gender-based pay discrimination, defamation and retaliation. 

Ryan’s lawsuit names the Nassau Health Care Corporation, the parent company that runs NUMC; the hospital’s new interim president, Dr. Richard Becker; NUMC board chair Stuart Rabinowitz and Richard Kessel, chair of the Nassau Interim Financial Authority, the financial watchdog group that oversees the hospital’s finances. 

"The coordinated, unrelenting campaign by [Nassau Health Care Corporation] leadership to defame Ms. Ryan and deny her payments she is owed under her employment contract is disgraceful," Alex Hartzband, an attorney representing Ryan, wrote in a statement Monday.

"Since June, members of NHCC leadership have leveled countless false accusations against Ms. Ryan to score cheap political points ahead of the November election. Ms. Ryan brings this suit to set the record straight and recover what she is owed."

Ryan is suing for unspecified damages. 

The suit comes one month after Ryan herself was sued by NUMC for $10 million for allegedly doling out more than $1 million in undue excess payouts, destroying hospital documents on her way out, reimbursing herself for what executives claim was a made-up trip to Chicago, and convincing loyal executives to join her in resigning, a claim publicly denounced by nine of the employees who left. 

Local officials and Gov. Kathy Hochul had fought over control of the hospital for months earlier this year. In the spring, Ryan announced her resignation, days before state officials took control of the hospital’s board. The new board then fired Ryan in June, a month before her scheduled last day, citing the excessive payments. 

She authorized more than $1 million in termination payouts to herself and 13 other executives before leaving her post, NUMC’s suit alleged. Tommy Meara, a spokesperson for the hospital, said in a statement that executives would "vigorously contest" Ryan’s suit filed on Monday.

"NHCC’s governing documents and New York law do not allow the CEO to disregard written policies unilaterally. Any attempt to pay amounts beyond the caps and limits set forth in NHCC’s benefits policy requires approval by the NHCC board of directors. That approval did not occur here," Meara wrote.

"We will also aggressively pursue our claims to recover the improper payments she authorized — some of which benefited her personally — as well as other damages caused by her conduct."

For his part, Kessel said: "This suit is completely meritless, and I think the courts will throw it out." He added that Ryan was wasting taxpayer money by forcing him and hospital executives to hire attorneys for this case.

Ryan's suit claims there was no hospital policy barring her from authorizing those termination payouts.

The suit also alleges that Ryan's firing violated New York State labor laws, and that her confidential communications were leaked to media organizations — leading to news articles that accused her of unethical and criminal behavior. 

Her attorneys alleged that Becker, the interim CEO, was awarded a base pay that’s 28% higher than what Ryan made — a disparity that "can only be explained by the fact that Becker is a man and Ms. Ryan is a woman," the suit read.

Meara, the hospital spokesman, pushed back: "The current board had nothing to do with Ms. Ryan's compensation; those decisions were made entirely by the prior board ... [Dr. Becker's] compensation is well within industry norms, and executives at other public hospitals in New York earn more," he wrote in a statement.

When NUMC's previous board named Ryan CEO with a $550,000 annual salary, former NUMC chair Matthew Bruderman said she was offered $750,000 but "volunteered" to take the lower sum.

"Ms. Ryan is not a political operative, yet she has found herself a casualty of politically motivated crossfire," the suit read. "Despite the fact that Ms. Ryan had graciously stepped aside to allow the Governor’s appointees to take over [sic], they were determined to destroy her based on a personal vendetta."