Atlanta Emergency Servs., LLC v. Clark (Summary)

EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT

Atlanta Emergency Servs., LLC v. Clark
No. A14A0469 (Ga. Ct. App. July 8, 2014)

fulltextThe Court of Appeals of Georgia upheld a jury’s verdict in favor of an emergency medicine physician (“Physician”) against her employer, a staffing agency (“Employer”), holding the Employer acted in bad faith in terminating the Physician’s employment. The Physician was hired to work at a local hospital. The Physician’s employment contract stated that she could be terminated without cause on 60 days’ written notice, or immediately if the hospital requested her removal or the hospital reported that the physician was being disruptive, unprofessional, or unreasonably uncooperative with the staff.

During the course of a year, the Employer received over a dozen complaints from nurses, patients, and other physicians that the Physician was rude and disrespectful. The Employer met with the Physician in an effort to resolve the issues and in the hope of preventing the complained of behavior from reoccurring.

Several months later, the Employer gave the Physician notice that her employment was being terminated, without cause, in 60 days. Despite the fact that the employment contract required it, and despite the fact that the Physician had requested it, the Employer failed to provide this notice of termination in writing. One month later, the Employer informed the Physician that she was being terminated immediately, for cause, based on a request from hospital administration. The Physician later learned that hospital administration had not requested her termination.

The Physician sued claiming that the Employer terminated her employment for cause despite the fact the contractual conditions required to do so were not satisfied, and, as such, the termination was in bad faith. After a trial, the jury found in favor of the Physician and awarded her $61,000 for lost wages and attorney’s fees. The Employer appealed the jury’s verdict and the amount of the award.

The appellate court held that the jury, as fact finder, was not unreasonable in finding that the Employer breached the employment contract by terminating the Physician’s employment for cause because the hospital’s executive team never requested the Physician’s immediate termination or officially reported any complaints. Furthermore, the court held the Employer acted in bad faith when it decided to terminate the Physician’s employment immediately even though it lacked cause to do so and, under state law, acting in bad faith permits attorney’s fees to be awarded by the jury.