Graham v. Mem’l Health Univ. Med. Ctr. (Summary)

EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION

Graham v. Mem’l Health Univ. Med. Ctr., No. CV411-316 (S.D. Ga. Sept. 20, 2013)

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia granted in part and denied in part a motion for summary judgment based on an OR nurse’s claims of racial discrimination, hostile work environment, disparate treatment and retaliation. The Caucasian nurse alleged that her African-American charge nurses screamed and yelled at her, subjected her to unwarranted and intense scrutiny, overburdened her, and refused to accept her assistance even after asking her to help.

The OR nurse was eventually involuntarily transferred from the transitional, 11-to-11 shift to a lower-paying day shift, which she claimed was in retaliation for her complaints.  Based on two incidents of alleged noncompliance with procedures, the nurse was terminated from hospital employment within two weeks of meeting with the Ethics Office to allege racial discrimination by the charge nurses.

The district court dismissed the nurse’s hostile work environment claim, holding that the nurse failed to allege sufficient facts to support her allegation that the harassment to which she was subjected was racially motivated. The nurse provided only one example in which a charge nurse even mentioned the race of the OR nurse and, even then, the statement merely implied that the OR nurse may have been racially biased.  The court also found that, based on the facts alleged by the OR nurse, any harassment she experienced was not severe enough to create a hostile work environment.  (The OR nurse’s claim for disparate treatment discrimination was allowed to proceed to trial due to a technical error in pleading on behalf of the hospital’s attorneys).

The court held that the OR nurse’s retaliation claim based on her transfer to the less desirable shift could not stand because though she complained about her supervisors’ harassing conduct at that time, she did not complain that the conduct was racially motivated until later, after the shift transfer had occurred.   The court allowed her claim for retaliatory discharge to proceed to trial, however, noting that she was discharged shortly after complaining to HR about racial discrimination and provided ample evidence to create a question of fact regarding whether the alleged policy violations were created as a pretext to fire her in retaliation for her complaints.