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A former executive for a New Jersey nursing home chain will receive more than $6 million from a jury who agreed with her claim that race played a factor in her being fired. Rebecca McCarthy said the company, Care One discriminated against her because she is Black. McCarthy alleges a senior vice president attempted to demote and later fired her at the senior rehabilitation center in Bound Brook according to NJ.com.

In 2016 McCarthy gave the company notice she was taking another job. Then the Care One founder’s daughter told McCarthy would later be promoted to a VP position, which came with a raise and bonus. A few months later, however, an executive who had just take over as administrator of the Bound Brook facility asked McCarthy to go back to her old position.

“I don’t want a black person walking around here in a suit as VP,” the executive, Alison Fitzpatrick-Durski, told McCarthy, according to the lawsuit. “I want you in scrubs, flats and a lab coat.”

The following day McCarthy was fired and replaced by a white woman according to the complaint. A jury ruled in her favor and awarded her $4.1 million in punitive damages, $1.8 million for past and future lost wages, and $5,000 for mental anguish, according to New Jersey Law Journal.

In court documents Care One lawyers argued McCarthy’s firing was because of her performance and was part of Fitzpatrick-Durski’s normal duties overseeing the rehab center according to NJ.com. In a motion attempting to dismiss the decision, they claimed Fitzpatrick-Durski was not a racist saying all five people she hired as direct reports are minorities, which are two African-American.

“Ms. Fitzpatrick-Durski was previously married to an African-American man and is the mother of three (3) children who partake of African American heritage,” the motion read.

A judge is expected to rule on the motion Nov. 22.

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