South Bend Hit With Age Discrimination Lawsuit Filed By Former City Employee

Former South Bend Director of Code Inspection Shubhada Kambli

When Pete Buttigieg became South Bend's mayor in 2012, he became one of the nation's youngest mayors at age 32. Buttigieg brought in a fellow Harvard alum from Boston, Shubhada Kambli, to serve as the city's director of code enforcement in February of last year. According to a lawsuit filed by the city's former chief code enforcement inspector, Brian Haygood, Kambli told him and other city workers in the department that the "city was moving in a different direction and intended to bring in younger people to replace older workers." In January of this year, the 53-year old Haygood says Kambli called him into her office and told him he was being fired, along with at least five other city workers over the age of 40, which he alleges was part of a plan to get rid of older workers.

Haygood's lawsuit alleges he was fired because of his age in violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"). In addition to the city, Haygood's lawsuit names Mayor Buttigieg and Kambli as defendants. The lawsuit alleged that Mayor Buttigieg "knew or should have known that Kambli was not qualified to serve as Director of Code Enforcement" and that she "possessed discriminatory animus towards others in the workplace." Kambli abruptly resigned her job last month, citing personal reasons, after less than two years in her position. The city declined to comment on the lawsuit. Mayor Buttigieg just returned from a 6-month deployment in Afghanistan where he served as a Naval intelligence officer where he said he was assigned to a counterterrorism unit charged with "targeting the connection between narcotics and insurgent financing."