Roberts v. Legacy Meridian Park Hosp., Inc. (Summary)
RACE DISCRIMINATION & ANTITRUST
Roberts v. Legacy Meridian Park Hosp., Inc., No. 3:13-CV-01136-SI (D. Or. Jan. 24, 2014)
The United States District Court for the District of Oregon granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss filed by a hospital and others in a suit brought by an African-American neurosurgeon. The surgeon alleged, among other things, that a precautionary suspension and proctoring requirement imposed by the hospital violated Oregon’s anti-discrimination laws and state and federal antitrust laws. According to the surgeon, the initiation of the peer review that resulted in the suspension and proctoring requirement was made by competitors on the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee and Surgery Department’s Executive Committee and was motivated by these individuals’ hostility arising from the surgeon’s success and race.
In partially denying the hospital’s motion to dismiss, the federal district court concluded that the state’s law prohibiting race discrimination applied to the hospital, as a “public accommodation,” and to the surgeon, as someone with “privileges” to use the hospital’s facilities. Accordingly, the surgeon, as an independent contractor, could bring his claim for race discrimination under the state statute. However, the surgeon’s unlawful retaliation claim under state law was dismissed, because “Oregon courts have consistently interpreted [the unlawful retaliation statute] to apply only in the employment context.”
The court also allowed the surgeon’s antitrust claims under state and federal law to proceed. The surgeon alleged that the defendants’ suspension of his privileges was a conspiracy in restraint of trade which “reduced the quality of neurological surgery services available in the market.” The court, in denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss the surgeon’s conspiracy claims, found that “a reduction in quality may constitute an antitrust injury, at least when allocative efficiency has adversely been affected.”