A former longtime nurse at Asante’s Medford hospital is suing the health care system, claiming it discriminated and retaliated against him for filing complaints over alleged health care violations and workers’ compensation claims.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Medford, accuses officials at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center of failing to protect Keith Coddington, an intensive care nurse, from contracting COVID on the job, failing to fully accommodate him after he developed long-term symptoms and then retaliating against him for logging multiple complaints against Asante on an inside complaint line.
Coddington, a 22-year Asante employee, was a member of the Oregon Nurses Association and took part in contract negotiations, the lawsuit says. He was also a union shop steward at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, and frequently complained about the company’s labor practices, the lawsuit states.
In October, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled in favor of Coddington, finding “substantial evidence” to back up some of his complaints of retaliation.
Officials at Asante, a nonprofit, did not respond to a request from The Lund Report for comment on the 30-page lawsuit or BOLI’s findings against the health care system.
The lawsuit, filed in mid-December, comes amid tensions between the health care system and the Oregon Nurses Association. In November, Asante took the unusual step of suing the union, alleging that one of its representatives repeatedly failed to give the required notice before showing up at the Medford hospital. Previously, the system had unsuccessfully appealed the vote by employees to join the union.
Coddington lawsuit
In his lawsuit, Coddington alleges that Asante failed to enforce social distancing requirements when the pandemic hit. It states the first staff member became infected in 2020, followed by Coddington in 2021. His infection turned into long COVID, according to a physician’s diagnosis, the lawsuit says, prompting Coddington to ask for rest periods and time between shifts to accommodate his condition.
His lawsuit claims that Asante failed to fully accommodate his requests for breaks.
At the same time, Coddington filed “repeated” complaints as a shop steward over the company’s staffing and other practices along with grievances over his own treatment, the lawsuit says. Asante fired him in June 2025, alleging he had violated federal health care privacy laws, the lawsuit states.
His complaints included reports about “wage and hour violations, nurse staffing requirements, patient and employee safety, workers’ compensation rights, medical leave, disability discrimination and retaliation,” the lawsuit states.
After developing long COVID, Coddington filed a request for “reasonable accommodations” that included regular breaks and 10 hours off between shifts. The lawsuit states that Asante officials tried to pressure him to drop the request and prevented his doctor from treating him.
The lawsuit also states that the hospital forced him to take a leave of absence, depriving him of pay. It also accuses Asante of curbing Coddington’s shifts as a higher paid charge nurse.
Asante partly agreed to Coddington’s request for accommodations, the lawsuit states, with officials saying that regular breaks and 10 hours off between shifts were already required by law.
In late 2024, Asante issued Coddington a “final written warning” over seven complaints about Asante’s working conditions and employment practices made to the company’s hotline from 2020 through October 2024, the lawsuit states. The warning threatened Coddington with termination, the lawsuit alleges.
In its October findings, BOLI determined that the final written warning amounted to retaliation for (Coddington’s) complaints and found that Asante had violated two Oregon statutes.
Privacy protections
In April last year, Asante officials accused Coddington of breaking federal health care privacy protections in an incident involving two opioid pumps that had inadvertently been left in a patient’s room, the lawsuit states. It says Coddington tried to follow procedures to get them secured but that he didn’t have a key number and his supervisors didn’t know how to proceed.
The lawsuit states that he reported the incident, using the patient’s name, and that the accusations of violating privacy laws followed.
Asante fired him in June, citing HIPAA violations, the lawsuit states. The health care system accused Coddington of sharing the patient’s name with an Oregon Nurses Association member in violation of federal law, according to public records obtained from BOLI.
The lawsuit categorizes Asante’s treatment of Coddington as “willful” and “malicious.” It accuses the hospital of violating Coddington’s rights, failing to investigate his claims, restricting his access to medical care, forcing him to take administrative leave, reducing his hours and firing him in violation of the law.
The lawsuit states that Coddington has lost wages, future income and benefits, along with prestige and future job opportunities. It adds that he’s suffered emotional distress including sadness, crying, anxiousness, fear, malaise, anger, lethargy, sleepless nights, humiliation, inconvenience and loss of confidence.
The lawsuit requests an unidentified amount of economic and punitive damages.
