Fired CEO Says Her Company Canned Her Because She Has Breast Cancer

Tuesday Morning Corp.’s former CEO, Kathleen Mason, is suing the home-furnishing retailer for allegedly firing her after they learned she had breast cancer. Classy!

The financially-challenged company and some of its investors have recently criticized Mason for the company’s declining revenue and large third-quarter losses; one investment firm, which recently paid millions of dollars for Tuesday Morning shares, said Mason “led an extraordinary destruction of shareholder value in stark contrast to the success of Tuesday Morning’s peer group.”

But Mason’s lawyers say that’s not why she was ousted. “The board’s attitude toward Kathleen changed after it learned of her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment,” attorney Rogge Dunn said in a statement Friday. He also claimed that Tuesday Morning had no long-term debt and had been profitable every year Mason led the company, and that it was telling how her severance package “emphasized medical benefits.”

The package also includes a 10-year consultancy clause followed by an 18-month noncompete clause, which her lawyer says means would “in effect locking her out of working elsewhere for nearly 12 years.”