Farley Lee v. Cleveland Clinic Found.

676 F. App'x 488
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 20, 2017
Docket16-3091
StatusUnpublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 676 F. App'x 488 (Farley Lee v. Cleveland Clinic Found.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Farley Lee v. Cleveland Clinic Found., 676 F. App'x 488 (6th Cir. 2017).

Opinions

DAMON J. KEITH, Circuit Judge.

Farley Lee (“Plaintiff’) appeals from the district court’s order for summary judgment in favor of Cleveland Clinic Foundation, et al. (“CCF” or “Defendants”). The district court concluded that Plaintiffs claims of race, national origin, and age discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) lacked any genuine dispute as to material fact and that Defendants were entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. Plaintiff also appeals the district court’s rulings on a motion to strike and a motion to compel discovery. We AFFIRM the district court’s motion rulings and REVERSE the district court’s summary judgment decision.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is of Chinese descent and was 61 years old at the time of the events at issue. (Lee Br, at 4, 6) Plaintiff was born in India and immigrated to the United States in 1976 when she was 23 years old. (Id.) Plaintiff worked at CCF for thirty-eight years as a registered nurse (“RN”). (Id.) Plaintiff received many awards for her service, including Nurse of the Year. (Id.)

In 2009, Plaintiff began reporting to supervisor Josalyn Meyer (“Meyer”). (Id. at 7) Meyer generally gave Plaintiff positive reviews for her work performance. (Id.)

However, while employed with CCF, Plaintiff began feeling as though she was being discriminated against because of her age. Plaintiff alleged that during performance reviews in 2013 and 2014, Meyer commented on Plaintiffs long tenure, told her “things have changed” and asked her when she was going to retire. (Lee Dep. I. R. #33-5, 305:23-25; 306-1-25; 307:1-3) On a third occasion, Meyer passed by Plaintiff while she was walking in the skyway of the clinic and inquired as to where Plaintiff was going. Plaintiff informed her that she was going to the gym to “de-stress.” (Id. at 306: 12-21; 346: 19-25) Meyer then replied, “My father was a laborer when he was 15 years old and he doesn’t know when to stop.” (Id.)

In addition to age discrimination, Plaintiff began to feel she was being disertan-[491]*491nated against on the basis of race and national origin. Plaintiff alleges that younger nurses called her an “oldbie” or “old bitch” and referred to rice she ate as “lice.” (Lee Dep. R. #33-4 at 170) She asserts that one nurse stated, “you Chinese people eat anything that crawls and walks” and also stated that Plaintiff does not have “chinky eyes” even though she is Chinese. (Id.) In December 2013, Plaintiff reported the incident to a different supervisor, Debbie Brosovich (“Brosovich”), who responded that she was “overreacting” and being “sensitive.” (Lee Dep. R. #33-5 at 342:14-19)

On April 15, 2014, Meyer called Plaintiff into her office to discuss an incident in which Meyer asserted that Plaintiff had been “pushy or abrasive” with a patient. (Lee Aff. R. #29-11 ¶ 11) At that meeting, Plaintiff complained that she was being discriminated against because of her age and race. (Id.) On April 17, 2014, Plaintiff complained to Brosovich that Meyer discriminated against her because of her age and race. (Id. ¶ 12; Lee Dep. R. #33-4 at 165:8-19; Brosovich Dep. R. # 33-1 at 41:11-25) Brosovich informed Meyer of the complaint before calling Human Resources (“HR”) to inform them of the same. (Bro-sovich Dep. R. #33-1 at 162-63)

On April 30, 2014, Meyer issued Plaintiff her first corrective action and performance improvement plan (“PIP”) for “lack of nursing care and communication” and failure to take “personal accountability” for those actions. (Meyer Dep. R. #33-6 at 236-237; 159:20-22) Meyer testified that a patient’s family orally complained that Plaintiff failed to administer medication to the patient, informed the patient that the mistake was a nursing student’s, and urged the patient’s family not to report the error. (Meyer Dep. R. #23-6 at 157-61) However, there is no record of any patient filing a written complaint against Plaintiff. (Meyer Dep. R. #33-6 at 256:19-25; 257:1-23)

After the issuance of the PIP, Plaintiff filed another complaint in writing with CCF’s Senior HR Director, Jill Prender-gast (“Prendergast”), challenging the PIP and claiming a hostile work environment. (Prendergast Dep. R. #33-9 at 116-117; Lee Ex. 82 R. #29-17 at 2; Lee Ex. 83 R. #29-17 at PagelD #847) Her request for relief under the CCF Right of Review Policy was denied. (Prendergast Dep. R. #33-9 at 89)

On May 12, 2014, Plaintiff met with Lisa Ullman (“Ullman”) from HR and complained that she was being treated differently because of her age and race. (Ullman Dep. R. #33-10 at 58:19-25; 59:1-4; 76:11-21; 81:11-23) Plaintiff told her that Meyer had asked about her retirement and made comments about her own father’s retirement. (Id. at 77:17-25; 78-1-2) Plaintiff told Ullman that she feared her managers were trying to discharge her. (Id. at 100:3-25; 101:1) However, HR did not investigate her complaints because it was determined that “there was nothing to investigate.” (Id. at 105:15-19)

Plaintiff testified that she was given a heavier workload than other nurses. (Lee Dep. R. #33-5 at 307) When she asked for a lighter load, she was admonished. (Id.) Plaintiff testified that assistant nurse managers constantly followed her around the unit and questioned her patients about her work performance, which she claims they did not do to younger, Caucasian nurses. (Lee Dep. R. #33-5 at 309:2-9)

On July 16, 2014, Meyer prepared another corrective action against Plaintiff, which was a written warning, regarding failure to provide safe care for a patient with a serious medical condition. (Lee Ex. 109 R. #29-17 at 4-5) The corrective action alleged that Plaintiff failed to monitor and escalate elevated vital signs to the medical [492]*492team. (Id.) When Plaintiff received the corrective action on Friday, July 18, 2014, she again complained of discrimination and told Meyer that she planned to get a lawyer. (Meyer Dep. R. #33-6 at 243:23-25; 244:1-7) A few hours later, she was suspended for at least three workdays pending investigation for allegedly confronting the patient after receiving the corrective action, telling the patient that she was being fired, and upsetting the patient, who then complained about the incident to the nursing staff. (Brosovich Dep. R. #33-1 at 168:1-16; Defendants’ Ex. 27 R. # 33-21 at PagelD # 3758) Shortly after midnight on July 21, 2014, Plaintiff sent an email to Defendants stating: “Effective immediately on this day of Sunday, July 20, 2014 I am submitting my resignation.... ” (Ex. R. # 32-7 at PagelD # 1052) After Plaintiff resigned, Meyer hired several RNs, all below the age of thirty, starting with Matt Holdyk (“Holdyk”), a twenty-nine year old Caucasian male. (Meyer Dep. R. 33-6 at 291-92)

Plaintiff filed a discrimination complaint in federal district court. (Complaint R. #1) During the pendency of the case, Plaintiff received employment files for each nurse in her unit; she filed a Notice of Discovery Dispute with the court challenging CCF’s faitee to provide employment files for an additional 80 nurses who worked on units different from Plaintiff but who were still under Meyer’s supervision. (Notice R. #14) As an apparent compromise, the district court granted only a random sampling of ten percent of the 80 files. (Order R. #18 at PagelD 227) The district court found that compelling the production of all 80 of the files would be unduly burdensome for Defendants.

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676 F. App'x 488, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farley-lee-v-cleveland-clinic-found-ca6-2017.