Tucker v. Mercy Tishomingo Hosp. Corp. – Aug. 2015 (Summary)

RACE AND AGE DISCRIMINATION CLAIMS – PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT

Tucker v. Mercy Tishomingo Hosp. Corp.
No. CIV-14-877-M (W.D. Okla. Aug. 4, 2015)

The United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted a hospital summary judgment with regard to a former physician assistant’s Title VII race discrimination and ADEA age discrimination claims brought after the hospital terminated his employment due to a perceived violation of EMTALA. The physician assistant – a black 56-year-old Bohemian man – allegedly told a patient with a snake bite that the hospital could not treat the wound because it did not have anti-venom. The patient left the hospital and sought care from another emergency department without being registered in the original hospital’s online charting system and transferred to the other emergency department by the physician assistant, in violation of EMTALA. After investigating the incident and discovering the possible EMTALA breach, the hospital terminated the physician assistant’s employment.

The court held that although the physician assistant was able to make out a prima facie case of age and race discrimination because a younger, white registered nurse was not reprimanded for failing to register the snake bite patient either, the physician assistant was unable to present sufficient evidence that the hospital’s stated reason for terminating his employment, the possible violation of EMTALA and hospital policies, was pretextual. However, the court denied the hospital’s motion for summary judgment with regard to the damages owed to the physician assistant for breach of contract, holding the letter sent from the hospital to the physician assistant terminating his employment a month earlier could not be considered 60-days’ notice of termination required by the physician assistant’s employment contract, and therefore created a fact question as to what damages the hospital owed the physician assistant. Additionally, the court held there was a fact issue as to whether the physician assistant mitigated his damages because he presented evidence that he sought and obtained employment at two clinics following his termination from the hospital.