Richardson v. Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center

63 F. App'x 886
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 28, 2003
DocketNo. 02-2303
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 63 F. App'x 886 (Richardson v. Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center) 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.

Bluebook
Richardson v. Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, 63 F. App'x 886 (7th Cir. 2003).

Opinion

ORDER

Fred Richardson, an African-American physician, brought suit against Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center, several entities affiliated with Rush, and five Rush employees, claiming violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and various state laws. Rush filed two counterclaims for breach of contract, and the defendants then moved for summary judgment as to all claims, which the district court granted. Dr. Richardson now appeals, and we affirm.

Dr. Richardson graduated from Rush Medical College in 1987, and after he had completed a three-year residency in family medicine, Rush employed him through an arrangement known as a medical service plan. Under his plan Dr. Richardson agreed to open a family practice, “Dr. Richardson’s Neighborhood Family Practice,” and to remit the patient fees to Rush. In exchange Rush agreed to pay Dr. Richardson’s salary and overhead (which included rent, malpractice insurance, supplies, and an employee’s wages). Dr. Richardson was still running the neighborhood practice five years later when Rush’s board of trustees also appointed him to the newly created position of assistant dean for minority affairs at the medical college. As assistant dean Dr. Richardson worked with Rush administrators to recruit and retain minority medical students, and Rush paid Dr. Richardson additional salary for those services.

Even though the neighborhood practice was incurring annual losses of about $100,000, in 1997 Dr. Richardson announced that he wanted to discontinue his medical service plan and “transition into private practice.” After his annual employment contract expired on June SO (the end of Rush’s fiscal year), Dr. Richardson and Rush began negotiating the sale of the neighborhood practice. During these negotiations Rush continued to perform its obligations under Dr. Richardson’s expired contract, and Dr. Richardson likewise continued to work as an assistant dean and to remit the patient fees generated by the practice.

Then in November 1997 Dr. Richardson stopped remitting the fees. According to Dr. Richardson, he stopped paying because defendant Erich Brueschke, then the dean of the medical college, told him that he could retain the fees “in preparation for the purchase and sale of my [pjractice.” Unaware of the withholding, Rush continued negotiating and even offered a deal, which Dr. Richardson rejected, to give him the practice’s assets free of any liabilities and to continue paying him $55,000 annually for his work as assistant dean for minority affairs. Rush’s attitude changed, however, when in February 1998 it discovered that Dr. Richardson was withholding the fees. Rush ordered Dr. Richardson to hand over the money, and Dr. Richardson in turn demanded that Rush double the salary that it proposed to pay him as an assistant dean. Then at a meeting held to discuss the sale of the neighborhood practice, a Rush attorney allegedly threatened to sue Dr. Richardson, who responded by turning over $7,503-the fees that he had not already spent.

That same day, Dr. Richardson wrote a letter to Dr. Brueschke accusing Rush of a “conspiracy.” In the letter Dr. Richardson threatened to sue for discrimination unless Rush gave him complete ownership of the neighborhood practice, permitted him to retain the withheld funds, forgave a $98,657 loan made so that he could dis[888]*888charge his medical-school debts, contributed to the capital of the practice, promoted him to a position titled “Dean of Minority Affairs,” agreed to a “lifetime” contract with annual compensation of $225,000, and met these demands by the end of the day. According to Dr. Bruesehke, he thought that the letter was not only “completely unreasonable” but also “hostile and confrontational.”

Despite Dr. Richardson’s threat to sue immediately, he and Rush spent the next three months attempting to secure an outside mediation. During this period Rush continued to pay Dr. Richardson’s salary and the neighborhood practice’s expenses, and Dr. Richardson continued to withhold the fees that he generated. But when Rush finally initiated an action in state court for an accounting, Dr. Richardson promptly signed an agreement to purchase the practice. The written agreement, which superseded all earlier oral arrangements, provided that Rush would assume the practice’s existing liabilities and that Dr. Richardson would receive all of the practice’s assets except a security deposit and “all monies actually received by the [practice prior to June 30, 1998.” Because Dr. Richardson was no longer participating in a medical service plan, Rush on July 1 reduced his salary to $55,000 — the amount continuously paid to Dr. Richardson as an assistant dean.

Meanwhile, Dr. Richardson was complaining about the behavior of several Rush employees. In February 1998 Dr. Richardson told Dr. Bruesehke that an assistant professor of anatomy had recited a racially offensive rhyme in front of a minority student, and in May Dr. Richardson launched a “protest” of “inequalities” at Rush by briefly refusing to perform his administrative and teaching obligations at the medical college. That month Dr. Richardson also charged that defendant Edgar Staren, then the associate dean of the medical college, had behaved insensitively toward minority medical students. Dr. Bruesehke investigated the accusations and sought to interview Dr. Richardson about his grievances against Dr. Staren. But Dr. Richardson refused to attend the meeting because Dr. Bruesehke would not simultaneously address his requests for increased salary as an assistant dean. Because Dr. Richardson would not elaborate on the charges against Dr. Staren, Dr. Bruesehke concluded that they were unfounded.

In July Dr. Richardson handed over records reflecting that during the previous fiscal year he had withheld $55,826 in patient fees and spent the money in part on lawyers’ fees, lunches, charitable contributions, credit-card bills, payments to his wife, and bonuses for his employee. With the approval of Rush’s president, Dr. Bruesehke then fired Dr. Richardson from his position as assistant dean for minority affairs, concluding that Dr. Richardson’s expenditures reflected a “completely inappropriate” use of Rush funds, that his behavior had become increasingly hostile and confrontational, and that he had leveled baseless charges against Dr. Staren.

After receiving a right-to-sue letter, Dr. Richardson filed a ten-count complaint, alleging that the defendants discriminated against him on account of his race, retaliated against him for opposing discrimination at Rush, breached three contracts, and committed various state-law torts. In addition to the events connected with his purchase of the neighborhood practice and subsequent termination, Dr. Richardson described in his complaint how the defendants allegedly had removed his name from informational resources associated with Rush, temporarily cancelled his health insurance, interfered with his pa[889]*889tient relationships, and shortened two medical students’ rotations with him.

Rush counterclaimed for the monies withheld by Dr. Richardson and the balance on the $93,657 loan given to discharge his medical-school debts, and upon the defendants’ motion, the district court granted summary judgment for Rush on all claims. In a footnote to its opinion, the court said that Dr. Richardson had submitted only his own affidavit in opposition to the motion and that he had failed to file a statement of undisputed facts as required by Northern District of Illinois Local Rule 56.1.

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63 F. App'x 886, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/richardson-v-rush-presbyterian-st-lukes-medical-center-ca7-2003.