McDaniel v. Loyola Univ. Med. Ctr. (Summary)

RESIDENCY TERMINATION

McDaniel v. Loyola Univ. Med. Ctr., Case No. 13-cv-06500 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 28, 2014)

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss filed by Loyola University Medical Center against a former resident’s claims of defamation, tortious interference, and wrongful termination. Dr. McDaniel, the former resident, sued the medical center and multiple physicians after he was terminated from the university’s five-year orthopaedic residency program.

McDaniel first began to experience problems with his superiors near the end of his fourth year in the program, when he refused to answer a 2011-2012 ACGME compliance survey about the number of consecutive hours he had worked that year. ACGME mandates that no resident may work more than 30 consecutive hours, but McDaniel had logged 37 hours during a shift in May 2012. Shortly after this occurred, the residency program director denied McDaniel’s request for ten days off from work, which he requested in order to recover from surgery for a detached retina. Later that same summer, the residency program director also took issue with McDaniel’s Air National Guard obligations, which required him to miss work for three weeks. When they met to discuss the resident’s military leave, the program director placed McDaniel on academic probation. McDaniel was terminated from the residency program not long after that.

In his lawsuit, McDaniel alleged that he had been subject to adverse employment actions and a hostile work environment on the basis of his military service. In addition, he claimed breach of contract, defamation, tortious interference, and violation of his due process rights. The defendants moved to dismiss all of these claims for failure to allege sufficient factual evidence. The court ultimately granted a motion to dismiss with regard to claims against the plaintiff’s co-resident and also for a claim of tortious interference against one of the plaintiff’s superiors. It denied the motion to dismiss for the remaining claims, holding that McDaniel had presented sufficient evidence for his lawsuit to continue. The court also gave the defendants additional time to file another reply.