A former Lehigh Valley Health Network employee is suing LVHN and parent Jefferson Health, alleging that he was fired for opposing what he described as a financial engineering scheme.
In a suit filed Feb. 11, John Bennett, a former high-level employee in both networks, alleges that LVHN and later Jefferson violated Pennsylvania’s whistleblower law and wrongfully terminated him after he raised concerns about a financial deal the health networks were pursuing.
A Jefferson spokesperson declined to comment, saying the network does not comment on ongoing litigation.
Bennett, the lawsuit says, was vice president of facilities management for design and construction at LVHN and oversaw major capital projects exceeding $50 million across the Jefferson footprint after the networks’ 2024 merger. The suit says he was fired in October after he repeatedly spoke out against a plan to generate short-term capital project funding that he believed would have locked the network into a contract that was fraudulent in nature and would have led to the network’s paying excessive long-term costs.
According to Bennett’s complaint, in 2023, LVHN began pursuing a deal with an “energy as a service agreement” company and signed a two-year nondisclosure due diligence agreement.
Under the proposed deal, LVHN would receive a large amount of cash up front, equal to the projected amount that the network would save on energy costs throughout the duration of the service contract. The network could use this...
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