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A California woman and former Resultant LLC official has accused the Indianapolis-based technology consulting company of violating anti-employment discrimination laws when it terminated her following her medical leave.
Heidi Steinecker, who joined Resultant’s Health and Human Services sector in 2024, filed her complaint in Sacramento County, California, on April 30 – four months after the company terminated her as part of a “reduction in force.”
But Steinecker asserts that Resultant fired her not for her position in the company but instead because of her medical condition and her requests for medical leave.
“California law is clear: it is illegal for employers to discriminate against employees based on their medical condition or to retaliate against them for taking and/or requesting protected medical leave,” said Kyung Finley, a California-based attorney, in a recent press release.
A Resultant spokesperson told The Indiana Lawyer in an email on Wednesday that Resultant is aware of the complaint and adamantly denies the allegations.
“Resultant is committed to fair employment practices and treating all employees with respect,” the spokesperson said. “To protect the integrity of the legal process, we won’t be commenting further.”
According to the complaint, in October 2025, Steinecker, who also served as the deputy director of California’s Department of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic, disclosed to her Resultant supervisor and a human resources business partner that she needed to have a double mastectomy surgery, which is the surgical removal of both breasts to treat breast cancer or prevent it, followed by breast reconstructive surgery. She requested medical leave under the California Family Rights Act, or CFRA, and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, which allow eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for family or medical reasons.
In an Oct. 29, 2025, email to Resultant officials, Steinecker said she expected to be out of the office for up to three to four weeks after the surgery.
After determining her surgery date, the complaint states that Resultant approved Steinecker’s FMLA leave request from Dec. 10, 2025, to Jan. 12, 2026. However, the complaint states that Steinecker believes Resultant was also required to designate her leave as CFRA leave as well, but failed to do so.
Steinecker faced complications from her Dec. 15 surgery, so she requested additional medical leave for a second surgery.
Resultant approved additional leave up to Jan. 25, 2026, again designating it as FMLA leave but not also CFRA leave, the complaint stated.
Steinecker returned to work on Jan. 26 and requested additional medical leave for her follow-up breast reconstructive surgery, which had been scheduled for March 20.
The next day, on Jan. 27, Resultant officials informed Steinecker that she had been selected for termination as part of a reduction-in-force. The criteria allegedly used when selecting employees to terminate were based on positions that are “least critical to the business and most feasibly eliminated without disruption to business operations.”
However, Steinecker asserts that she held a high position within her practice area and was “certainly not ‘least critical to the business.'”
Steinecker alleges that the company misidentified her job title in the separation documentation to “justify” her inclusion in the reduction. In the documentation, the complaint states, Resultant identified Steinecker as a “Client Partner,” even though, she argues, that she had been promoted to Senior Director months prior.
According to the complaint, Resultant’s Health and Human Services practice accounted for about 34% of the company’s total sales pipeline for March 2026, with Steinecker’s direct sales accounting for about 29% of the company’s total sales pipeline.
“The timing and circumstances of [Steinecker’s] selection [for termination] are highly suspicious and support a strong inference of discrimination, retaliation, and interference,” the complaint stated.
Steinecker is now requesting compensatory damages for lost back pay and a jury trial.
The case is Heidi Steinecker v. Resultant, LLC, et al (26CV010706).
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