Roberts v. Advocate Health Care

119 F. Supp. 3d 852, 25 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 169, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103631, 2015 WL 4719897
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedAugust 7, 2015
DocketCase No. 14 C 442
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 119 F. Supp. 3d 852 (Roberts v. Advocate Health Care) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Roberts v. Advocate Health Care, 119 F. Supp. 3d 852, 25 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 169, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103631, 2015 WL 4719897 (N.D. Ill. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Joan B. Gottschall, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Sharon Roberts is a former employee of Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center who worked as a registered nurse team lead in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab from September 2009 to March 2013.1 She contends that Advocate violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (“IMWL”) by failing to pay her for all of the overtime work that she performed. Advocate seeks, summary judgment on both claims. For the following reasons, Advocate’s motion is granted in part and denied without prejudice in part.

I. Background

A. Local Rule 56.1

Advocate filed a reply in support of its Local Rule 56.1 statement. (Dkt. 38.) [854]*854“This is a procedurally improper attempt to have the last word in a manner That .is not contemplated by the local rules.” Killis v. Cabela’s Retail II, Inc., No. 13 C 6532, 2015 WL 128098, at *1 (N.D.Ill. Jan. 8, 2015) (collecting cases). Thus, the court will not consider Advocate’s reply in support of its statement of facts.

With respect to Robert’s response to Advocate’s statement of facts, the court has broad discretion when enforcing the local rules governing summary judgment motions. See, e.g., Petty v. City of Chicago, 754 F.3d 416, 420 (7th Cir.2014). First, some of Roberts’ so-called denials fail to demonstrate that the factual assertions at issue are disputed. For example, Roberts takes issue with ¶ 16 of Advocate’s statement of facts, which provides:

When an employee is not on shift or on-call, she is not expected to respond to any page, whether cardiac emergency, or otherwise. (Magurany Dep. 50:21-51:5, 85:9-22, 159:16-24.) Ms. Magurany [Roberts’ supervisor] instructed [Roberts] that “It’s my expectation that .if you’re not on-call, turn your pager off. You do not. need to look at or answer emails. Nothing is that urgent. The only urgent thing in the cath lab is the cardiac alert; So that we give to people that- are on-call.” (Ex.' B/Magurany Dep. 159:16-24.) 1 '■

Roberts asserts that the quoted deposition testimony does not support the first sentence, but it appears to do so, and Roberts does not cite to any evidence that supports her denial. Merely saying that a fact is disputed does not transform it into a disputed issue of fact sufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment. See Hurst v. Mauger, No. 11 C 8400, 2013 WL 1686842, at *2 (N.D.Ill. Apr. 16, 2013). This problem appears repeatedly in Roberts’ response to Advocate’s facts as numerous facts are purportedly disputed although the evidence cited by both Advocate and Roberts supports Advocate’s statement of fact. The court will disregard all denials of facts by Roberts that are fairly supported by the cited evidence.

Advocate is also guilty of improper denials as in its response to Roberts’ statement of additional facts, it repeatedly states that facts are “disputed in part, but immaterial.” Some of Advocate’s responses explain why Advocate believes that the cited testimony is inaccurate and include citations to the record. However, it is not always clear why Advocate believes that certain portions of Roberts’ facts are unsupported by the record. For example, in response to ¶ 9 of Roberts’ statement of additional facts, Advocate asserts that it is “[disputed but immaterial that Ms. Magurany was responsible for making the final approval of work schedules for members of her team as unsupported by the cited testimony.” The cited testimony provides “Q: Was it one of your duties and responsibilities as manager of cardio to review and make the final approval'or work schedules for members of your team” A: Yes.” (Ma-gurany Dep. at 91:21-92-1.)

Advocate’s practice' of marking the vast majority of facts as “disputed” in whole or in part when they are not disputed is at odds with the local rules governing summary judgment, which" are supposed to streamline proceedings, not provide a platform to disagree reflexively with the position of the opposing party. As with Roberts’ improper denials, the court will disregard denials by Advocate where the facts at issue are fairly supported by the cited evidence.

Turning back to Roberts’ responses to Advocate’s facts, she include numerous types of unresponsive denials. For example, in ¶26 of Advocate’s statement of [855]*855facts, Advocate asserts that Roberts “worked a total of 331.74 hours of overtime work over the [statutory] period.” Roberts denies this fact and states that “she worked, on average, approximately 8 to 12 hours of unpaid overtime hours each workweek during her employment with Advocate.” The court understands that Roberts’ position is that she was not paid for all of the overtime hours that she worked. But her overtime hours are not limited to the claimed additional 8 to 12 hours. She has not denied that she also worked 331.74 overtime hours as posited by Advocate and as shown by the evidence cited by Advocate. She also does not cite to any record evidence that demonstrates that a dispute exists. See Loe. R. 56.1(b)(3)(B)-(C). The court will disregard this type of unresponsive denial. See id.

Next, numerous responses to Advocate’s facts state that Roberts “admit[s] that according to the data produced by Defendant,” Advocate’s statement of fact is true. See, e.g., Roberts’ response to ¶ 47 of Advocate’s statement of facts. To the extent that this is an attempt to contest the fact asserted by Advocate, it is unavailing. Advocate’s corresponding facts are deemed admitted. See Patterson v. Burge, No. 03 C 4433, 2010 WL 3894438, at *3 (N.D.Ill. Sept. 27, 2010). Similarly, to the extent that Roberts ends a response, to one of Advocates’ statements of fact with the phrase “[d]eny the rest”.without providing a citation to the record, Advocates’ fact is deemed admitted. See Loe. R. 56.1(b)(3(C); see also Cardoso v. Celico P’ship, No. 13 C 2696, 2014 WL 6705282, at *2 (N.D.Ill. Nov. 26, 2014).

Finally, Roberts attempts to challenge statements she made during her deposition by generally citing multi-page documents without providing pinpoint citations. For example,¶ 70 of Advocate’s facts quotes Roberts’ deposition testimony about the disputed overtime: “I can’t break it down, but I do know it was about 8 to 12 per week.” In her response to ¶ 70, Roberts states (again) that she estimates that she worked approximately 8 to 12 hours of uncompensated overtime per pay period and in support, cites to thirty instances where she made this claim in some fashion during her deposition. She also cites to Magurany’s deposition testimony that Ma~ gurany understood that she was seeking 8-12 hours of overtime per week. None of this refutes Advocate’s statement of fact in ¶ 70 that Roberts herself could not break down her claimed overtime past her estimate of 8 to 12 hours per week.

Roberts’ response, however, continues.

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Bluebook (online)
119 F. Supp. 3d 852, 25 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 169, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103631, 2015 WL 4719897, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roberts-v-advocate-health-care-ilnd-2015.