Ryliskis v. Uniontown Area Hosp (Summary)

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Ryliskis v. Uniontown Area Hosp., Civil Action No. 11-1517 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 5, 2013)

The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted summary judgment in favor of a hospital, holding that there was not enough evidence for an operating room technician to sustain a race-based hostile work environment claim.

The technician alleged that over a period of seven years she was harassed by coworkers based on her race and, in support of her claim that her work environment was hostile, pointed to a number of incidents, including one where a surgeon sang along to the radio when Lady Marmalade was playing, while allegedly dancing like a gorilla.  At the time, the technician complained about that incident, which led the hospital to conduct an investigation and ask the surgeon to apologize (though he denied dancing like a gorilla and said he was not aware that the song was about black people).  The hospital did not receive further complaints from the technician about the surgeon.

The technician alleged discriminatory conduct by several hospital employees as well, but, in a number of those cases, she had never reported the conduct to the hospital and, in others, she failed to provide any evidence that the conduct was racially motivated (for example, a doctor who almost pushed her flat on her face while heading to the intensive care unit with a bunch of nursing students and an operating room team leader who used a tone of voice that was belittling).

The district court held that the incident with the surgeon singing and dancing, if true, would be sufficient to sustain a claim of hostile work environment.  However, because the surgeon was not employed by the hospital and his conduct did not involve a tangible employment action, the hospital could not be held strictly liable for his conduct.  Therefore, the only way for the hospital to be held liable for the surgeon’s (a non-employee’s) conduct is if the technician showed the hospital was negligent in its control of her working conditions.  In other words, the technician would need to show that the hospital failed to take remedial action that was reasonably calculated to prevent further harassment.

The court held that because the technician was not subjected to further harassment by the surgeon after reporting the singing/dancing incident, she could not establish that the hospital’s handling of the situation was negligent.  Further, the court spoke favorably about the fact that the hospital had a formal complaint procedure, which was known to the technician, conducted an investigation in response to the technician’s complaint, informed the surgeon that his conduct was considered offensive by the technician, and implemented a hospitalwide nondiscrimination, anti-harassment training program.