Pamela R. Clay v. Holy Cross Hospital

253 F.3d 1000, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 13260, 82 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 40,897, 87 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 387, 2001 WL 664853
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJune 14, 2001
Docket00-2916
StatusPublished
Cited by84 cases

This text of 253 F.3d 1000 (Pamela R. Clay v. Holy Cross Hospital) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Pamela R. Clay v. Holy Cross Hospital, 253 F.3d 1000, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 13260, 82 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 40,897, 87 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 387, 2001 WL 664853 (7th Cir. 2001).

Opinions

MANION, Circuit Judge.

Dr. Pamela Clay sued her former employer, Holy Cross Hospital, alleging that the Hospital terminated her because of her pregnancy in violation of Title VII. The Hospital moved for summary judgment.The district court granted the motion, concluding that Clay failed to demonstrate that the Hospital’s legitimate, non-discrim[1002]*1002inatory reason for her termination was a pretext for discrimination (the Hospital administration asserted that Clay failed to demonstrate the dedication necessary to grow her practice into a profitable enterprise). Clay appeals.1 We affirm.

I.

Holy Cross Hospital is located in Chicago, Illinois. In 1992, the Hospital embarked on a plan to create a Neighborhood Affiliate Network (“Network”) of primary care physicians who would practice in offices in the community surrounding the Hospital. The Hospital’s strategy was to subsidize the network of physicians with guaranteed salaries until their practices matured into profitable enterprises, thus eliminating the need for the Hospital’s subsidy. A Practice Management Department managed the daily operations of the Network. Bill Seliga, the Hospital’s Vice President of Practice Management, headed the Practice Management Department and reported directly to the Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Clement.

The Hospital hired its first physician for the Network in 1993. From the beginning of the Network’s creation, Clement explained to the Network’s physicians that they were expected to “hustle” to build a profitable practice because, at some point, they would be on their own.

In June 1996, the Hospital hired Dr. Pamela Clay to work as a pediatrician at its Ford City Neighborhood Affiliate. Clay signed a written employment contract entitling her to an initial salary of $100,000. The contract allowed either Clay or the Hospital to terminate the employment relationship upon 90 days’ notice. The Ford City Affiliate was under the administrative control of Julie Rudolph, a clinical operations manager in the Hospital’s Practice Management Department.

Clay became pregnant in late October 1997. (She did not disclose her pregnancy to the Hospital’s administration until May 1998.) By early 1998, the Network failed to reach a break-even point and continued to need the Hospital’s subsidy. Additionally, the Hospital was having financial difficulties of its own at that time. Clement concluded that the Hospital could no longer afford to subsidize the Network at then-present levels, in part due to reductions in Medicare payments caused by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. In the first few months of 1998, the Hospital was losing approximately $300,000 per month on the Network.

Due to the Network’s poor financial performance, on April 14, 1998, Clement met with Seliga to review the Network’s subsidy and the fact that some physicians and their practices were not performing as well as expected. Clement asked Seliga to assess the practice of each physician in the Network to determine which physicians “were going to get the hospital where it needed to be,” and which physicians should be “prune[d]” from the Network. Clement asked Seliga to assess each physician’s practice, including subjective factors like [1003]*1003how hard a physician was working, and whether the physician was participating in the Hospital’s marketing efforts in order to build a profitable practice.

After his meeting with Clement, Seliga met with several managers in the Practice Management Department, including Julie Rudolph, and Theresa Gaffney, the Hospital’s Marketing Director. At that meeting, Seliga told the practice managers that the Hospital needed to reduce the Network’s subsidy, and that it would likely have to lay off some physicians. He solicited the managers’ opinions on which physicians to terminate. The practice managers commented on each physician’s willingness to participate in practice-building efforts, and on their likelihood to grow their practices. The group created a preliminary list of physicians they perceived to be less likely to grow their practices to profitability. That initial list included Clay and eight other physicians.

Between April 14 and April 20, 1998, Seliga reviewed Clay’s numbers concerning her revenues, expenses, participation in community events, hours in the office, marketing activities, procedures provided to patients, and patient volume. Then on April 20, Seliga met again with Gaffney and the practice managers to discuss the list of proposed layoffs. According to Seli-ga, the group reached a consensus that each physician on the list was unlikely to grow their practice to profitability because they lacked the willingness to participate in marketing activities or to make the other efforts required to see, attract, and service more patients. The issue of pregnancy was never brought up in the decision-making process.

After some additional meetings between Seliga, Clement, and other Hospital administrators, the list of physician layoffs was finalized on May 1, 1998. The reduction-in-force (“RIF”) was termed the “Neighborhood Affiliate Reorganization” and was expected to save the Hospital approximately $2 million. As the head of the Practice Management Department, Bill Seliga had the ultimate authority, subject to Mark Clement’s review, to decide which physicians would be terminated under the RIF.

Seliga testified that he decided to terminate Clay because he concluded that she would not achieve a financially-self sufficient practice regardless of the amount of assistance she received from the Hospital. According to Seliga, he based his decision on his own knowledge of Clay’s performance and on the advice he received from other Hospital employees, including Julie Rudolph and Theresa Gaffney. Seliga testified that he was advised by Gaffney that Clay was uncooperative with the Hospital’s marketing efforts, and that she failed to participate in any of the Hospital’s 25 marketing events. Seliga also states that he was told that Clay had low patient accessibility. Patient accessibility means the amount of time that a physician is in her office and her receptivity to walk-in patients. It is undisputed that patient accessibility is “the key” to building a successful practice. According to Seliga, Gaffney and Rudolph told him that Clay was unwilling to see patients outside of her schedubd office time, and that she would turn patients away who were waiting in her office at the end of her schedule. Seliga also testified, that Rudolph informed him that Clay was reluctant to take advanta of opportunities to grow her practice by covering for other physicians who were ”n-available. And Seliga determined t! at Clay’s practice had low growth a -w revenue, and that she had a generally i-n-cooperative attitude. Thereiore, Sei.ga claims that he concluded that Clay ed to demonstrate the entrepreneurial ,q, fit and commitment necessary h grow her practice into a profitable enterprise.

[1004]*1004Clement, Rudolph and Gaffney corroborated Seliga’s testimony. According to Clement, physicians were selected for termination because “what they might have been looking for in a position may not have been consistent with what we were looking for in a physician.” Clement testified further as to the kind of physician that the Hospital was not

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253 F.3d 1000, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 13260, 82 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 40,897, 87 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 387, 2001 WL 664853, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pamela-r-clay-v-holy-cross-hospital-ca7-2001.