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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">Michigan Supreme Court building</p>                                <p class=\"imgtitle\"></p>           LANSING, Mich. (Legal Newsline)-A woman's mental disability claim has been rejected this week by the Michigan Supreme Court.<br /><br />Patricia Brackett filed her complaint after she was reprimanded by her employer, a civil rights organization, for failing to attend a mandatory Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in 2002.<br /><br />The high court ruled 4-7 that Brackett's alleged mental injuries arose from her decision not to attend the MLK celebration, and not from the actions of her employer: Focus: HOPE.<br /><br />After all, the court ruled, she \"accepted her position with full knowledge that she was required to attend the event.\"<br /><br />Brackett, who worked for Focus: HOPE, initially objected to the Detroit-based organization's decision to move its 2002 Martin Luther King celebration from Detroit to Dearborn, Mich., a community she told supervisors had a history of tenuous race relations.<br /><br />Court papers say she told she would be docked a day's pay, but after skipping the event the organization's co-founder and director, Eleanor Josaitis, she was docked two days of pay and had her work responsibilities reduced. <br /><br />\"To harbor such feelings of the past without thinking how our MLK mandatory staff development day helps to move Focus: HOPE into the future, reduces my confidence in your commitment to help us fulfill our mission statement,\" Josaitis said in a memo to Brackett.<br /><br />In her lawsuit, Brackett claimed at in a second meeting with Josaitis her boss reiterated her disappointment and shook her finger Brackett's face, and said she did not deserve to receive a paycheck from the organization. <br /><br />When asked if she was being fired, the lawsuit claimed that Josaitis shrugged her shoulders and let her out of the office.  Brackett claimed the event traumatized her mentally. <br /><br /><i>From Legal Newsline: Reach reporter Chris Rizo at <a href=\"mailto:chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com\">chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com.</a></i><br />"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://legalnewsline.com/stories/510519512-michigan-court-rejects-mental-disability-claim-against-civil-rights-group>