A Scarborough man with a dental practice in Ellsworth is being sued by a former employee who claims she had a workplace affair with him and that he violated labor laws in how he paid and supervised her.
Dentist Aaron Palmer is facing an 11-count civil suit in federal court that was filed this week by Lucinda Burns, who worked for him as a dental assistant from 2012 to 2023. Burns accuses Palmer of initiating an extra-marital affair with her that lasted off and on for most of that time, and of committing multiple labor and wage violations as her employer.
At the time his accuser worked for him, Palmer owned and operated Smile Design and Elevate Dental Extractions, which had separate locations in Ellsworth on State Street and Bucksport Road. He has since sold Smile Design to a different dentist but still owns the practice on Bucksport Road.
Palmer did not respond to a message left at his office Thursday afternoon.
Palmer is alleged to have not fully paid Burns for the hours she worked at his dental practices, not provided her with overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week and withheld payment for hours worked after she left her job. She also accuses him of gender discrimination, creating a hostile work environment, sexual harassment, violating the Maine Human Rights Act by retaliating against her, defamation and unlawfully interfering with her attempts to find another job after she left his practice.
Burns previously filed a complaint of discrimination with the Maine Human Rights Commission and received a notice of a right-to-sue letter from the commission on or about May 30, 2024, according to the new court complaint. She also previously filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
She wrote in the new 29-page complaint that after her husband discovered the affair, but before Palmer’s wife did, Palmer allegedly emailed her husband and offered to pay him $50,000 a year to keep quiet about the affair and to consent to letting Burns continue working for him.
Burns also alleges that she was fired after Palmer’s wife found out about the affair.
“Even though the sexual relationship between Burns and Dr. Palmer was consensual, he conditioned the terms and privileges of her employment on sex and made her uncomfortable about leaving her job and/or ending their affair on multiple occasions for years before firing her,” the complaint states.
Another woman who worked for Palmer as a hygienist also had payment issues with him that he allegedly resolved by giving her an antique car, the complaint says.
In 2019, after the hygienist found out that she allegedly was Palmer’s only employee who wasn’t getting paid for lunch breaks, she calculated that she had missed out on $40,000 to $50,000 in pay that she would have received if she had been paid while eating lunch, according to the court document. The complaint does not say how long the hygienist worked for Palmer.
The hygienist “threatened to get a lawyer and bring a wage claim against Dr. Palmer,” Burns wrote in the complaint. “Rather than paying Murphy the time she thought was missing, Dr. Palmer gave her an antique car that his father had gifted him.”
Burns is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial in federal court against Palmer, according to the document.
