Bastidas v. Good Samaritan Hosp. LP — Mar. 2016 (Summary)

RETALIATION

Bastidas v. Good Samaritan Hosp. LP
Case No. 13-cv-04388-SI (N.D. Cal. Mar. 15, 2016)

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted in part and denied in part a hospital’s motion to dismiss a retaliation claim made by a surgeon.  This litigation arose following a complicated surgery at a hospital that resulted in the death of a patient and the suspension of the surgeon’s privileges.

After peer review proceedings, the Board of Trustees issued a final report on the matter, recommending that the surgeon be proctored for a number of surgeries prior to regaining his surgical privileges.  The surgeon asserted retaliation claims across three separate complaints, and this specific case dealt with the fourth amended complaint.

The surgeon argued that he was subject to retaliation by the hospital in four separate instances: a failure to update an entry in the National Practitioner Data Bank, a continued delay in allowing the surgeon to satisfy proctoring requirements, the disqualification of the surgeon from chief of surgery election, and the removal of the surgeon as chair of a cancer committee.  The court reasoned that the surgeon failed to plead facts that demonstrated that these instances constituted retaliation.