Matheny v. Reid Hosp. & Health Care Servs., Inc. — Mar. 2002 (Summary)

Matheny v. Reid Hosp. & Health Care Servs., Inc.
No. IP 00-1439-CT/K (S.D. Ind. Mar. 12, 2002)

A medical records clerk sued a hospital for sexual harassment. The clerk claimed that she was harassed over a 10-month period by a physician who had privileges at the hospital; the hospital claimed it terminated the clerk after she failed to submit to urinalysis for drug screening. The United States District Court, Southern District of Indiana ruled that in order to make a claim for sexual harassment the clerk had to show that the sexual harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment. The court refused to grant summary judgment to the hospital finding that, based on the facts, a reasonable person could conclude that the hospital decided that it was much easier to “get rid of the young file clerk who complained about sexual harassment…rather than to replace the older, medical doctor who was accused of harassing her.”

The court also ruled that an employer can avoid liability for its employees’ sexual harassment if it takes prompt and appropriate corrective action reasonably likely to prevent the harassment from occurring and that it was questionable whether the hospital acted promptly in this case.