Pal v. Jersey City Med. Ctr. (Summary)

DENIAL OF APPLICATION FOR PRIVILEGES

Pal v. Jersey City Med. Ctr., No. 11-6911 (SRC) (D. N.J. Nov. 19, 2013)

The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denied a motion for summary judgment filed by a hospital and others in a suit brought by a female, Indian, general surgeon, claiming that her application for privileges at the hospital was unlawfully denied.

The physician claimed that her application for privileges was denied based on negative information provided by two references from a cardiothoracic surgery residency which she did not complete.  She resigned from the residency after she was informed that her contract would not be renewed for a second year in the residency program.  The surgeon brought a separate suit against the residency program, claiming that the decision not to renew her contract was a retaliatory action for her complaints about staff members’ derogatory comments about her ethnicity and gender.  That case ended in a jury verdict for the surgeon.  However, the jury answered “no” to a question asking whether the surgeon proved that negative references were provided to other hospitals and, if so, if they were retaliatory in nature.  The hospital, in this case, argued that she was precluded from re-litigating this issue because it had already been decided in a separate case.  The court disagreed, holding that the jury’s answer in the earlier case did not clearly indicate that negative references were not provided.  According to the court, “[a]n equally plausible interpretation of the jury’s response is that even though [the surgeon] had proven that negative references were given, she did not demonstrate that they were given in retaliation for her complaints about discrimination.”