LONGTIME EMPLOYEE FILES SUIT.

Byline: David Greenberg Staff Writer

A 25-year Ventura County employee has filed a $1.5 million wrongful termination suit that claims she was fired, in part, because her husband blew the whistle on the county's fraudulent Medicare billing practices.

The lawsuit, filed in Ventura County Superior Court, claims Saundra Duncan was unlawfully taken off the Children and Family Services Department payroll last month, nearly a year after she was demoted from a department manager to a program administrator.

Duncan, who made $68,000 a year, also claims that she ran afoul of top county health officials in 1998, when she vocally opposed their plans to merge the Social Services Agency with the Behavioral Health Department.

The suit also claims she was fired because her husband, Craig, now a full-time county psychiatrist, played a key role in an investigation that uncovered fraudulent Medicare billing and resulted in a $15.3 million fine against the county.

``She expressed reservations about the merger, and her husband played a pivotal role in the criminal investigation of the bills of the Behavioral Health Department,'' the suit states. ``(Duncan) is informed and believes that the above investigation played a significant role in the collapse, in December 1998, of the merger.''

County Counsel James McBride disputed Duncan's claims.

``(Termination) was not done in retaliation,'' he said. ``It was totally unrelated.''

The suit seeks $1 million in punitive damages and $500,000 in general damages.

Duncan took a voluntary paid medical leave in June 1999 to have surgery for an unspecified, work-related injury and did not learn of the demotion until November 1999, the suit states.