Dark v. Houston Methodist San Jacinto Hosp. — May 2016 (Summary)

EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION – NURSE

Dark v. Houston Methodist San Jacinto Hosp.
Civil Action No. H-14-3540 (S.D. Tex. May 12, 2016)

The District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted a hospital’s motion for summary judgment with regard to a former nurse’s ADA, Title VII, and §1981 claims of disability and racial discrimination. The former nurse was an RN II at the hospital. After receiving a flu shot, the nurse was diagnosed with Unspecified Connective Tissue Disease, an autoimmune disease, and she applied for short-term disability in January 2014. The hospital informed the nurse in May 2014 that her short-term disability would expire in July 2014 unless she returned to work or received an extension as an accommodation. The nurse provided documentation that she could not return to work and requested an extension, but both requests were denied. The hospital informed the nurse that her leave would be exhausted on October 2, 2014, and she would be terminated from her position unless she returned to work. After her termination, the nurse filed a lawsuit.

The district court held the nurse failed to present evidence that the open and available positions she indicated would be appropriate would not involve patient contact. The former nurse’s claim that the hospital did not engage in an interactive process to accommodate her disability were also rejected. The hospital’s human resources director communicated with the nurse regarding her limitations, and noted that telecommuting would not be an option because all nurse positions at the hospital required patient contact. The district court also held the nurse failed to cite evidence that her request for an extended leave of absence constituted a reasonable accommodation, holding the nurse never provided the hospital an estimate of when she could resume her job duties and that the hospital was not required to wait indefinitely for the nurse’s medical condition to be resolved.

In reviewing the nurse’s racial discrimination claim, the district court held the nurse had failed to establish a prima facie case. The nurse did not dispute she was no longer qualified for her previous position or any available position currently at the hospital. Additionally, the district court held the nurse failed to provide sufficient evidence of disparate treatment because those employees who were treated “more favorably” than her were not similarly situated: one nurse had suffered a broken wrist and the other was pregnant, both temporary conditions. The district court held the nurse had failed to show the hospital’s decision to terminate her employment, namely that no reasonable accommodation would have enabled the nurse to perform the essential functions of her job as an RN II, was merely a pretext for racial discrimination.