Clark v. S. Broward Hosp. Dist. – March 2015 (Summary)

GENDER DISCRIMINATION

Clark v. S. Broward Hosp. Dist., No. 13-14848 (11th Cir. Mar. 31, 2015)

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of numerous gender discrimination and retaliation claims brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by a physician against the defendant hospital.

Plaintiff Dr. Clark, a female physician, was employed at the defendant hospital in its critical care department (“CCD”). Dr. Clark had the responsibility to create the CCD physicians’ monthly work schedule. (She was paid for this service.)

A number of events led to Dr. Clark’s legal actions. When the position of Director of the CCD opened up, Dr. Clark was advised that she should not apply because she was too direct and confrontational. Before selecting a permanent CCD Director, the hospital chose a male surgeon from a different department to act as the Interim Director. Dr. Clark complained to the hospital’s human resources department that she had been passed over for this position because she was a woman.

A month later, the Interim Director scheduled a meeting to discuss physicians’ complaints that Dr. Clark was creating unfair schedules. All 14 CCD physicians attended. During the meeting, two male physicians stated that Dr. Clark was intimidating and unapproachable and created unbalanced work schedules. The meeting ended abruptly when Dr. Clark suddenly left and declared she was taking a two-month leave of absence (“LOA”) beginning the next day.

A few days later, during her LOA, Dr. Clark discovered she could no longer log into the scheduling system and that the Interim Director had taken over her scheduling responsibilities. Dr. Clark filed a gender discrimination complaint with the EEOC.

The hospital investigated Dr. Clark’s complaints and found no evidence of gender discrimination with any of them. The hospital concluded that Dr. Clark had many interpersonal conflicts with her coworkers.

During this same time period, Dr. Clark applied for the permanent CCD Director position. Dr. Clark was interviewed, but the hospital selected another candidate, as it was looking for someone outside the department and with previous supervisory experience. Dr. Clark then took another LOA, this time for three months.

A year later, the new CCD Director began receiving complaints that Dr. Clark was bullying and threatening other physicians, which included the use of racial and religious slurs. It was alleged Dr. Clark stated that she was going to leave the hospital “in a trail of blood” and “bring down the group.” After an independent investigation, the hospital found that Dr. Clark had been using bullying and threatening behavior and terminated her employment.

Dr. Clark sued on the claims that she was discriminated against based on her gender when the hospital took away her scheduling responsibilities, failed to promote her, and terminated her. Additionally, she alleged that the hospital retaliated against her for filing a complaint with the EEOC. The hospital argued that, regardless of Dr. Clark’s gender, it would have made the same decision based on her conduct. The district court dismissed the suit and Dr. Clark appealed.

The appeals court affirmed the lower court’s ruling, holding that Dr. Clark failed to rebut any of the hospital’s legitimate decisions. The court explained that the fact Dr. Clark had lost her paid department scheduling position while she was on a self-imposed LOA was neither unreasonable nor an adverse action by the hospital. Moreover, Dr. Clark was not discriminated against when she did not receive a promotion to Director; she was simply unqualified by the hospital’s hiring criteria.

The court also found no gender discrimination on the hospital’s part by its termination of Dr. Clark’s employment. The hospital terminated her contract not because of Dr. Clark’s gender but due to the multiple reports of her using threatening behavior and inflammatory language. Lastly, the court held that the hospital did not fire Dr. Clark in any retaliation. The court found that Dr. Clark failed to show a causal connection between her complaint to the EEOC and her termination; the temporal gap of 15 months between the two events was too long.