Nineteen former faculty members of the psychiatry department at Dartmouth College's Geisel School of Medicine have sued, saying Dartmouth violated their employment contracts and policy that entitled them to severance payments when it laid them off.
The Valley News reports a college spokeswoman said officials had no comment.
The dispute is the latest to arise following Dartmouth's moves to erase an estimated annual deficit approaching $30 million at Geisel.
As part of what officials described as a restructuring, Geisel's psychiatry department was transferred to Dartmouth-Hitchcock on July 1. Most of the department's clinical research faculty and staff were let go by the college and hired by the medical center.
The lawsuit filed last week says workers who left Dartmouth and went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock found "material differences in the compensation and benefits" at the health system.
