Offor v. Mercy Med. Ctr. — Jan. 2017 (Summary)

EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION

Offor v. Mercy Med. Ctr.
No. 16-839 (2d Cir. Jan. 20, 2017)

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded in part the ruling of a lower court on a physician’s racial discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment claims.

The physician, an African-American female of Nigerian descent, alleged that while employed at the defendant hospital, she was denied vacation time and moonlighting hours due to her race and national origin.  Later, the physician was placed in a probationary program, where she alleged that the hostile work environment and discrimination persisted.  Eventually, the physician filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (“EEOC”) and was terminated by the hospital.

The court found that the physician’s claims of discrimination were not sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss because the physician’s comparators (other employed physicians who allegedly received better treatment than she did despite their supposedly equal status) were not, in fact, “similarly situated in all material respects.”  The physician also claimed a violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”).  Because the physician brought her claim nearly three years after the hospital allegedly denied permission to take vacation time, the physician was required to prove that this denial was a “willful” violation of the FMLA.  The court pointed to the fact that the physician was eventually permitted to take the vacation time and that the hospital, at the time, offered reasonable explanations for denying her request.  Accordingly, the court affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of the claims that related to discrimination and the FMLA.

The court did, however, find evidence sufficient to raise an “inference of retaliatory intent” in the hospital’s decision to place the physician in a probationary program only a month after she had retained an attorney and attempted to exercise her FMLA rights.  Because the physician attempted to exercise her FMLA rights, was qualified for her position, and suffered an adverse employment action, the court vacated the lower court’s dismissal of the physician’s retaliation claim.