Bastidas v. Good Samaritan Hosp. (Summary)

DISCRIMINATION – RACE

Bastidas v. Good Samaritan Hosp.,
No. C 13-04388 SI (N.D. Cal. July 7, 2014)

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a Colombian-born surgeon’s lawsuit alleging racial discrimination against a hospital following his suspension after a patient death. The court had already dismissed the surgeon’s claims once, but allowed him the opportunity to amend his complaint. In dismissing his claims this time, the court held that the surgeon still failed to allege sufficient facts that suggest he was intentionally discriminated against based on his race. The court noted that while the surgeon’s complaint included many allegations of disparate treatment between him and white physicians, ultimately he failed to sufficiently show that the only two somewhat analogous situations that had occurred at the hospital, two surgeries performed by white physicians that resulted in the patients’ deaths, were actually similarly situated to him – in terms of similar surgeries being performed and that those physicians’ treatment of those patients was of the type that might have triggered peer review proceedings. The court also dismissed the hospital’s parent company from the lawsuit because the surgeon did not allege any facts that show the parent company directly participated in any wrongdoing.