Bell v. Methodist Healthcare Memphis Hosps. (Summary)

EMPLOYMENT TERMINATION:  ADA

Bell v. Methodist Healthcare Memphis Hosps., No. 2:11-cv-02755-JPM (W.D. Tenn. Jan. 28, 2013)

The United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee granted summary judgment in favor of a healthcare company, doing business as a number of hospitals, on a nurse’s claim of employment discrimination on the basis of her fibromyalgia.  Years later, she was transferred to the same day surgery unit of one of the company’s hospitals. From 2002 to 2009, various incidents and performance evaluations indicated that the nurse was distracted, was making unprofessional personal phone calls, needed to focus on her work, and needed to improve her time management and timeliness.  In February 2010, the nurse received a final warning, after a case in which she seemed confused, was delayed, missed an abrasion on the operative site, and made inappropriate comments.  Her employment was terminated in September 2010, after another incident, in which she breached a sterilization technique by attempting to prepare a needle in the hallway, without gloves on.  After the termination, she sought only one other nursing job and applied for, and received, federal disability benefits.  In 2011, she sued the company under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the Tennessee Human Rights Act, alleging discrimination based on her fibromyalgia. (The state law claims, however, were dismissed by the court, since the nurse failed to pursue them.)

The ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals on the basis of a disability. A qualified individual is a person who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of his or her job.

The court found that the nurse could not perform the essential functions of her job. First, it found that the essential functions of the nurse’s job were undisputed. They included the use of specialized skill and judgment to assess patients and the prompt retrieval and documentation of patient information. Second, it found that the nurse could not satisfy these essential functions, based on the repeated reprimands that she received, her own admission that she did not seek other nursing employment due to her disability, and the award letter of disability benefits by the federal government, which stated that she was unable to work due to her disability. Since the court found that the nurse had not shown any evidence that she was otherwise qualified for her position, it granted summary judgment to the company.