A staffer for U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio has sued him in federal court, alleging his office refused to accommodate her disabilities like anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The lawsuit, filed Jan. 6 in Pittsburgh federal court, says plaintiff Amanda DiGregory wasn’t allowed to bring her therapy dog into the office and was “verbally annihilated” at a performance review a year ago.
She was fired in July for missing the morning session of a conference in D.C., which she says was the result of a bomb threat at her hotel that kept her and coworkers from their rooms until 2 a.m. the night before.
“The four colleagues who made the exact same decision to miss the morning session and who also skipped the morning session were not disciplined in any manner whatsoever,” the lawsuit says.
“The disparate treatment demonstrates that the stated reason for Plaintiff’s termination was pretextual.”
Deluzio, a Democrat, was elected in 2022 to serve citizens in Pittsburgh suburbs and Beaver County. Five months into his first term, he hired DiGregory for constituent services, and a year later, she notified his office of her disabilities.
Her request to bring a therapy dog to work was approved but the dog was later turned away from the office without “explanation or reason,” she said. She’d also asked for a quieter workplace, similar to the request a male employee made, but that never happened, the suit says.
“Hostile treatment” during a January 2025 performance review gave her a panic attack that exacerbated her disabilities, the suit says. She took medical leave for three months and returned in April.
Her return was met with an improvement plan for her work and a requirement that she call the district director every morning at 9 a.m. to check in, the suit says. She missed one such call and was the target of an “aggressive and unprofessional email,” it adds.
Her medical leave was the reason she was treated this way, DiGregory says. She was fired, then filed a claim with the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights in October.
Brendan Petrick and others at The Workers’ Rights Law Group represent DiGregory.
