Ohio Court and Jury Reject Plaintiff’s Disability Discrimination Claim When She Was Not Diagnosed Until Months After Her Termination

Late last month, the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals affirmed an employer’s jury verdict in a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee.  Anderson v. Ohio Bell Tel. Co., 2018-Ohio-5237.    In that case, the employer terminated the plaintiff after she had taken three months of medical leave on account of undiagnosed wrist and hand pain and sought an indefinite leave of absence which was not supported by medical documentation.   Several months following her termination, she was diagnosed with major depression, but the trial court refused to permit her treating psychiatrist to testify as an expert (when he had not been previously identified as an expert witness as required by the civil rules) or to matters that existed before he began treating her two months after she had been fired.  None of her other treating medical professionals could opine to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that she was unable to work in the months prior to her termination of employment.  The jury returned a verdict for the employer, finding that the plaintiff did not prove that she suffered from a disability on the date that she was terminated.  The Court found that the plaintiff’s treating physicians were reasonably limited to testifying only to what they actually perceived in their treatment of her. 

According to the Court’s opinion, the plaintiff had complained of various hand, wrist and back pain and claimed that she was unable to work.   She began a medical leave of absence on August 5 and it was converted to short term disability.  The employer extended her medical leave without requiring any medical documentation. After she was warned that she could be terminated without supporting medical documentation, her physician provided medical documentation reflecting her complaints of pain, but providing no diagnoses or indication that she was unable to work.  Her medical leave was extended another month, at which point she requested on October 22 an indefinite leave of absence as a reasonable accommodation without providing any supporting medical documentation or even a diagnosis.  She was terminated on November 5.   In January, she was diagnosed with major depression and her psychiatrist found her unexplained pain was consistent with depression.

The Court also rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the employer could be held liable – even if she were not in fact disabled on the date she was terminated – solely because the employer’s witnesses could not explain the legal definition of “disability.”  Whether the employer applied the correct definition of disability in practice is irrelevant when the plaintiff did not prove that she suffered from a disability when she was terminated.

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can be changed or amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.

Sixth Circuit Blames Employee’s Physician For Year Delay In Reinstatement Following Stroke and Dismisses Disability Discrimination Claim

On Tuesday, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the summary judgment dismissal of an Ohio disability discrimination claim brought by a current employee who wanted to return to work following rehabilitation of a severe stroke before the company’s physician agreed.  Stanley v. BP Products North America, Inc., No. 18-3303 (6^th Cir. 12-4-18).   Although the plaintiff had been released to return to work without restrictions by his physician’s office in August 2011, the company’s physician disagreed after conducting his own medical assessment and the plaintiff’s physician provided a signed note in November 2011 agreeing with the company’s physician.  The plaintiff did not provide a contrary note from his personal physician releasing him without restrictions until July 2012 and he was returned to work the following month when the company’s physician conducted another assessment and agreed.  The Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the employer could be found to have discriminated against him without knowledge that his own physician’s November 2011 was flawed and not based on any medical assessment.  Employers are generally entitled to accept an employee's doctor’s restrictions at face value.

According to the Court’s opinion, the plaintiff suffered a severe stroke in November 2010 and collected short-term disability.  However, after his STD was exhausted and he completed his rehabilitation, his application for long term disability was denied after his personal physician – the villain in this story --  failed to submit some required documentation.  His physician told him that he would release him to return to work if he passed a driving assessment, which he did.  He was then examined by a Certified Nurse Practitioner which found him to be physically fit as of August 2011, but did not conduct a cognitive assessment.  At that point, the employer’s collective bargaining agreement provided that he had to pass a physical examination by the company’s physician.   The Company’s physician agreed with the CNP that the plaintiff had good strength and reflexes, but had issues with balance, fine motor skills, coordination and some cognitive skills.  For instance, he could not stand long on one leg, had difficulty with heel to toe walking and could not subtract 7 from 93.   Concerned, the company’s physician studied the plaintiff’s medical file and determined that his physician had failed to conduct certain necessary tests or to understand the requirements of the plaintiff’s job.  The company’s physician then restricted the plaintiff to office work, for which there were no open positions.

The bargaining agreement then required the two physicians to consult with each other about their disagreement and, if not resolved, select a specialist to resolve the dispute.   The company’s physician faxed information about the issue to the plaintiff’s physician and called him in October and November without success.   Apparently, the plaintiff’s physician never reviewed faxes, or returned calls and delegated these issues to his office staff.  The union then pursued the issue with HR, who called the plaintiff’s physician office to complain about the lack of response, pointing out that the plaintiff was about to have his utilities shut off when he was earning neither wages nor LTD. At that point, the plaintiff’s physician provided a signed note restricting plaintiff’s return to work and suggesting LTD.  The plaintiff was not provided with a copy.  However, he was awarded LTD, which he rejected because he contended that he was able to return to work in August.

In March 2012, the plaintiff’s physician signed a second note saying that he only signed the first note because of information about the plaintiff’s finances and indicated that the plaintiff could immediately return to work without restrictions.  However, this second note was not provided to the employer until July 2012.  There is no indication in the record whether the plaintiff’s physician conducted any medical assessment in either November 2011 or March 2012 and the physician denied recalling signing either note.  The plaintiff was evaluated again by the company’s physician in August (in the presence of an assistant and union representative) and passed all of the physical and cognitive tests.  He was immediately returned to work and remained there when the lawsuit was filed challenging the year delay in reinstating him to work.

The plaintiff argued that the employer should have realized that his physician’s November 2011 note was flawed and not based on any medical assessment or review of his medical file.  However, the Court found that employers are generally entitled to rely on a doctor’s restrictions at face value.  There was no evidence presented that the employer knew – or should have known -- that the plaintiff’s physician was simply providing a note as requested earlier in the day by HR affirming the restrictions so that the plaintiff could collect LTD.

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can be changed or amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney. 

Sixth Circuit Rejects ADA Claim Where Deposition Testimony of Plaintiff’s Physician Showed He Was Unqualified and Employer Could Reasonably Conclude that Plaintiff Would Continue to Seek Additional Extensions of Medical Leave.

Last week, the Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment on a disability discrimination claim asserted against an employer which took the high risk action --  of terminating a disabled employee who had been released to return to work with some lifting restrictions and who requested a reasonable accommodation -- without any evidence that the lifting restriction prohibited him from performing any of the essential functions of his job or consulting their own medical expert.  Aston v. Tapco Int’l Corp., No. 14-2476 (6^th Cir. 11-23-15).  The employer discharged the plaintiff after conducting its own internet research about the employee’s upcoming surgery and drawing its own medical conclusions about his actual ability to safely perform his job duties.  Even so, 18 months later, the employer reconsidered its position and offered the employee unconditional reinstatement to his position and agreed to honor his lifting restrictions.  Luckily for the employer, the employee’s own physician later contradicted the medical release he had provided to the employer before the plaintiff’s termination and testified in his deposition that he had not been physically able to perform his essential job functions at the time he was terminated or for some months thereafter. Accordingly, the plaintiff was not “otherwise qualified” for his job at the time of his termination.  In addition, after “an employer has already provided a substantial leave,” the request for “an additional leave period of a significant duration, with no clear prospects of recovery, is an objectively unreasonable accommodation.”  Finally, the court held that even if the plaintiff’s claim had proceeded to trial, he would have been precluded from recovering any back pay after he rejected the employer’s offer of unconditional reinstatement because he had a duty to mitigate his damages.

According to the Court’s opinion, the plaintiff had worked for the defendant employer for almost 20 years.  In 2006, he suffered his first heart attack and was off work for more than 26 weeks.  He suffered a second heart attack in May 2010 and in early November was released to return to work on January 1 with a 30-pound lifting restriction following impending surgery to implant an ICD.  HR surfed the internet to investigate the ICD surgery and found information that it was intended to prevent sudden death.   Even with a set return-to-work date, the employer notified the plaintiff that it did not believe that he would be able to perform his job duties, recommended that he should apply for LTD and indicated that he would be terminated by the end of the month.  The plaintiff returned to his physician with news of his impending termination and obtained an immediate return to work release with a 30-pound lifting restriction.  Nonetheless, the employer terminated his employment on the grounds that they did not believe that he could really perform his job duties and would not reinstate him unless he was released to full duty.  The plaintiff submitted a reasonable accommodation request the following month, which was ignored for 18 months.  At that point, the employer unconditionally offered to reinstate the plaintiff to his former job and to honor his lifting restriction.  Finding this to be too little, too late, the plaintiff instead pursued an EEOC Charge and filed suit later that same year.

There was no dispute that the plaintiff was discharged because of his disability.  His termination notice said as much and had stated that he would not be reinstated without a release to return to full duty.  However, the plaintiff was still required to show that he was “otherwise qualified’ for his position with or without a reasonable accommodation.  If he had been able to do so, the employer would have needed evidence beyond its own evaluation of his physical abilities and likely would have had to defend its requirement of 100% fitness.

Luckily for the employer, the testimony of the plaintiff’s own physician did not help his claims.  He testified that he had reviewed the plaintiff’s job description and had notified the employer that he could perform all of those tasks, with the exception of certain lifting.  However, he had not asked the plaintiff how much time he spent performing each task.  More importantly, the physician conceded that the plaintiff likely would not have been able to perform the essential functions of his job when he was released to return to work in November and would not have been able to do so until sometime after January.   Therefore, even if the employer had reinstated the employee in November or early January as requested, the plaintiff still would not have been able to perform about half of his job duties.  Accordingly, at the time of his discharge in November, he was not qualified to perform his job with or without a reasonable accommodation.

As for the plaintiff’s reasonable accommodation claim, the court still found that the plaintiff could not show that he was otherwise qualified because he would not have been able to perform his essential job functions in January.  It also would have constituted an undue hardship for the employer to continually extend his medical leave of absence: “when an employee’s return date is not so certain, an employer is not required to keep open a job for an employee indefinitely.”  

This situation goes beyond what constitutes a reasonable accommodation. At the time of [the plaintiff’s] termination, [the employer] reasonably questioned whether [he] would be able to return to work, not only in November, or in January, but if ever. Just a few weeks before terminating [him], [his physician] informed [the employer] of another impending major medical procedure that [he] needed to undergo. This would doubtlessly require additional time for recuperation. [The plaintiff] had already been on an extended 26- week leave once before, in 2006, and, at the time of his termination, [he] was on his second leave of unknown duration, despite the request for return on January 1, 2011. With no certain or credibly proven end in sight, we therefore maintain as we did in Walsh that when, as here, “an employer has already provided a substantial leave, an additional leave period of a significant duration, with no clear prospects of recovery, is an objectively unreasonable accommodation.”

Moreover, the court affirmed that the employee’s duty to mitigate meant that, even if he had prevailed on his ADA claims, he would not have been able to recover any back pay for the period after he rejected the employer’s reinstatement offer.  The Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the employer’s offer was not made in good faith (in that he had already been replaced, etc. and had been made merely to call the plaintiff’s “bluff” that he was physically capable of working).  “As the district court noted, the Sixth Circuit has not adopted the good faith exception as a special circumstance warranting the continued tolling of a plaintiff’s backpay, even after an employee rejects an employer’s unconditional offer for reinstatement.” 

Finally, the court rejected the employer’s request for sanctions on the grounds that the employee’s claims were not frivolous.  

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can be changed or amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.

Hamilton County Court of Appeals Rejects Public Policy Wrongful Discharge Claim Based on Alleged HIPAA and Insurance Fraud Violations

Last week, a divided Hamilton County Court of Appeals reversed a jury verdict entered in favor of a terminated physician on a public policy wrongful discharge claim on the grounds that her accusations of HIPAA and insurance fraud violations were not supported by sufficiently clear sources of public policy because neither statute imposed an affirmative obligation on the plaintiff to report her concerns or prohibited the employer from retaliating against an employee who reports violations of the statute.  McGowan v. Medpace, Inc., 2015-Ohio-3743. Unlike Cuyahoga and Franklin County Courts of Appeal, the Hamilton County Court of Appeals requires a statutory source of public policy to parallel the general whistleblower statute by requiring an employee to report concerns and to prohibit the employer from retaliation for reporting those concerns.  Also, this case rejects a prior Montgomery County Court of Appeals decision finding HIPAA to be a valid source of public policy to support a wrongful discharge claim.

According to the Court’s opinion, the plaintiff had been hired into three positions to replace a retiring physician: to be the Executive Director of two research centers and to take over the retiring physician’s private practice.  In addition, the retiring physician appointed her to replace him as the Principle Investigator on the research studies being conducted by the two research centers.   While the research centers was not affiliated with the private medical practice, they shared office space, employees and patients. Shortly after she started, the plaintiff became concerned with how the staff treated patient files (in that the research studies and medical practice operated using the same file instead of having different charts).  Staff also left the charts open on carts outside patient rooms.  She felt that this violated HIPAA.  She was also concerned that the retiring physician routinely ordered larger doses of medication than medically necessary and directed the patients to split them.   She felt that this was insurance fraud.   She also conferred with an attorney who confirmed her suspicions.  Accordingly, at the next staff meeting, she directed the staff to cease the offending practices and expressed her opinion that they violated HIPAA and insurance fraud laws.  The retiring physician learned of her accusations and removed her as the PI and from his private practice.  The defendant employer did not fire her or remove her from her ED positions, but explained that she should not have made the allegations and it could not control the retiring physician from removing her from his practice and research studies.  After she refused to apologize to the retiring physician and accused the employer of retaliation, it fired her a few weeks later.  She was awarded $800,000 in compensatory and punitive damages by a jury.  The employer appealed.

Unlike Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties, the Hamilton County Court of Appeals only recognizes narrow exceptions to the employment at will doctrine and  public policies as actionable wrongful discharge claim if the underlying statute – like the general whistleblower statute – requires the plaintiff to report concerns and prohibits the employer from retaliating against the employee for reporting those concerns:

In a claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy, an employee satisfies the clarity element by establishing that a clear public policy existed, and that the public policy was one that imposed an affirmative duty on an employee to report a violation, that prohibited an employer from retaliating against an employee who had reported a violation, or that protected the public’s health and safety.

With respect to the plaintiff in this case, the Court concluded that the insurance fraud statute did not impose an affirmative duty on her to report her concerns about the retiring physician’s insurance fraud or prohibit her employer from terminating her for reporting those concerns.  Accordingly, that statute could not constitute a clear source of public policy as required for a public policy wrongful discharge claim under Ohio law.

The Court reached the same conclusion with respect to the HIPAA issues even though the Montgomery County Court of Appeals had previously recognized it as providing a sufficiently clear source of public policy protecting patient’s privacy rights.  The dissent would have recognized the HIPAA public policy claim as protecting public safety.

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can be changed or amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.

Sixth Circuit Rejects Employment Claims Brought by Independent Contractor Surgeon

Last week, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the summary judgment dismissal of Title VII and §1981 claims brought by a surgeon after her surgical privileges were revoked by a hospital after she injured a patient.  Brintley v. St. Mary Mercy Hospital, No. No. 12-2616  (6^th Cir. 11-15-13).  After she had used a particular surgical technique which may caused significant complications for a young patient following a routine procedure, the Hospital’s Chief of Surgery for the defendant hospital requested that the plaintiff surgeon remove herself from the emergency call list and to cease using that surgical technique.  An investigation revealed that in the 13 months she had been on staff, six of her patients had suffered avoidable complications compared to one avoidable complication during the same period for the remaining nine surgeons combined.  The hospital’s executive committee recommended that the plaintiff undergo a proctorship where all of her surgeries would be supervised.  However, when the plaintiff objected to the proctors’ directions, and continued to perform the problematic surgical technique, the Executive Committee voted to suspend her medical privileges.   She brought suit for racial discrimination under Title VII and §1981. 

The Court found that she was not covered by Title as an independent contractor.  She paid her own taxes, licensing fees and malpractice insurance premiums and billed her own patients.  She held privileges at other medical facilities which were not supervised or controlled by the Hospital. She never filed tax returns claiming to be an employee of the hospital.

The Court likewise affirmed the dismissal of her §1981 claim on the grounds that the medical bylaws did not constitute a contract. Section 1981 “protects the equal right of all persons . . . to make and enforce contracts without respect to race.”  The Plaintiff claimed that the hospital violated this statute when it revoked her medical privileges.  The Plaintiff did not have an independent contractor agreement or other contract with the hospital. 

 

Brintley contends that St. Mary’s bylaws created such a contract. But she does not explain which of the bylaws’ provisions create a contract with her, much less how any provision does so. And the bylaws themselves appear primarily, if not exclusively, to describe St. Mary’s self governance and organization. Nothing in them speaks to or creates a contractual relationship with Brintley.

While the bylaws did not explicitly state that they were not a contract, the Court did not find this to be controlling.  The Court did not discuss any quid pro quo which flowed from the hospital to the plaintiff or visa versa.

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can change or be amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.