Dookeran v. County of Cook (Summary)

DEFAMATION

Dookeran v. County of Cook, No. 1-11-1095 (Ill. App. Ct. Mar. 22, 2013)

The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment against a physician’s allegation of defamation and held that res judicata barred the physician’s remaining claims against a county in Illinois that conducted business as a hospital.  In the case, a physician was denied reappointment to a hospital because the hospital discovered that the physician had willfully failed to disclose a letter of reprimand that a prior employer had issued and that he had a history of verbally abusing hospital personnel.  The physician contested the denial of reappointment through the hospital’s administrative procedures.  While the hospital’s administrative review was pending, the physician filed a civil complaint.  The appellate court’s decision here addresses the allegations of this civil complaint.

The court concluded that res judicata applied to the physician’s retaliatory discharge and breach of contract claims.  For both of these allegations, the court concluded that the issues had been fully tried via the administrative process, had involved the same parties, and had achieved a final verdict.  Here, the court applied a transactional test that considered whether the allegations arose from a single group of operative facts.  Because the court concluded that the claims in the civil action satisfied the transactional test, the court concluded that the claims were barred under res judicata.

Furthermore, the court sustained the grant of summary judgment based on its review of the record that led the court to conclude that the allegedly defamatory statements were in fact true.  Accordingly, the court affirmed the grant of summary judgment.