Hunt v. Macon Orthopaedic & Hand Ctr., P.A. (Summary)

INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS

Hunt v. Macon Orthopaedic & Hand Ctr., P.A., Civil Action No. 5:14–CV–298 (MTT) (M.D. Ga. Feb. 17, 2015)

fulltextThe U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia denied a physician’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit was filed by a physician’s assistant who had formerly worked at the physician’s orthopedic clinic.

The physician’s assistant alleged that the physician had subjected her to harassment and verbal abuse for a period of three years. Specifically, she claimed that he regularly demeaned her in front of other employees, treated her less favorably than male employees, and had threatened to terminate her when she missed work to go to a previously scheduled and approved doctor’s appointment. When she eventually complained about this behavior to the clinic’s CEO, she was terminated a month later.

In its opinion, the court explained that a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress generally requires the conduct at issue to be “extreme and outrageous.” The standard that courts use to assess this is to ask whether an average member of the community would find the behavior so egregious as to say, “Outrageous!” In this case, the court concluded that the incidents cited by the physician’s assistant were not extreme in isolation. However, it determined that these incidents, when viewed with the larger pattern of behavior, illustrated conduct that could potentially be seen as outrageous. It therefore denied the physician’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.