Timothy Hill v. Oak Street Health MSO LLC

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION

TIMOTHY HILL,

Plaintiff, Case No. 2:22-cv-10684

v. Honorable Susan K. DeClercq United States District Judge

OAK STREET HEALTH MSO LLC,

Defendant. ___________________________________/

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION (ECF No. 57)

In March 2022, Plaintiff Timothy Hill sued his former employer, Defendant Oak Street Health MSO LLC (OSH) for sex and race discrimination, a hostile work environment on the basis of sex, and retaliatory termination. ECF No. 1. Hill’s discrimination and hostile-work-environment claims were dismissed in June 2023, ECF No. 19, so only his retaliation claims proceeded through discovery, see ECF No. 22. After the close of discovery, OSH filed a motion for summary judgment, ECF No. 46. In September 2025, this Court granted the motion, finding that Hill had not established a prima facie case of retaliation because only two of his three complaints met the legal definition of a protected activity for a retaliation claim, and “there [was] no question of fact that those involved in deciding to fire [Hill] had no knowledge of the only complaint that qualifie[d] as a protected activity.”. ECF No. 55 at PageID.738.

Now, Hill seeks reconsideration of this Court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of OSH under Civil Rule 59(e). ECF No. 57. I. LEGAL STANDARD

“Parties seeking reconsideration of final orders or judgments must file a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) or 60(b).” E.D. Mich LR 7.1(h)(1). Under Civil Rule 59(e), a party may file a “motion to alter or amend a judgment” within 28 days after entry of judgment. FED. R. CIV. P. 59(e). “[T]he

purpose of Rule 59 is to allow the district court to correct its own errors, sparing the parties and appellate courts the burden of unnecessary appellate proceedings.” York v. Tate, 858 F.2d 322, 326 (6th Cir. 1988) (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted). The grounds for altering or amending a judgment under Rule 59(e) are limited. “A district court may grant a Rule 59(e) motion only to (1) correct a clear error of law, (2) account for newly discovered evidence, (3) accommodate an intervening

change in the controlling law, or (4) otherwise prevent manifest injustice.” Moore v. Coffee Cnty., TN, 402 F. App’x 107, 108 (6th Cir. 2010) (citing GenCorp., Inc. v. Am. Int’l Underwriters, 178 F.3d 804, 834 (6th Cir. 1999)). II. DISCUSSION Hill’s motion for reconsideration is a house of cards resting on the

foundational assertion that this Court “made an improper ruling[] of fact” when it determined that two of Hill’s alleged complaints were not protected activities as a matter of law. ECF No. 57 at PageID.769. According to Hill, because neither party

challenged whether Hill’s January 2020 and March 2020 complaints were protected activities in the summary judgment briefing, this Court should not have waded into the issue at all. Id. But, absent underlying factual disputes about a complaint, whether a

complaint is a protected activity for the purposes of a retaliation claim is inherently a question of law for this Court to resolve at summary judgment. Cf. Fritze v. Nexstar Broad., Inc., No. 1:18-CV-1313, 2020 WL 13682746, at *7 (W.D. Mich. July 13,

2020), aff’d 847 F. App’x (6th Cir. 2021) (determining, as a matter of law, whether the plaintiff’s activities qualified as protected activities under Michigan’s Whistleblower Protection Act); see also Mattera v. JPMorgan Chase Corp., 740 F. Supp. 2d 561, 579 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (“[W]hether a particular activity is ‘protected’

is a question of law; whether the plaintiff engaged in that activity is a question for the jury.”). This Court did not weigh credibility determinations to determine whether Hill made complaints in January and March 2020. It simply applied the law of

retaliation claims to the facts of this case and determined that Hill’s January and March 2020 complaints were not protected activities under the relevant law. At bottom, it was not clear error for this Court to apply the law to the undisputed facts

of this case to resolve a question of law. From here, the rest of Hill’s arguments for reconsideration start to crumble. Indeed, his arguments rest on the assumption that his January 2020 and March 2020

complaints were protected activities. See ECF No. 57 at PageID.766–68. First, Hill asserts that this Court ignored evidence that Tiffani Hallum and Demario Trent were aware of Hill’s previous complaints. See id. at PageID.766–68. But—as this Court concluded in its opinion and order granting OSH’s motion for

summary judgment—the record contained no evidence that Hallum or Trent were aware of Hill’s August 2020 complaint, only that they were aware of his January 2020 and March 2020 complaints. See ECF No. 55 at PageID.754–55. And neither

of the complaints of which Hallum and Trent were aware qualified as protected activities. See id. (noting that “Hill did not point to a single piece of evidence showing that either Hallum” or Trent were aware of the August 2020 complaint). In this way, it was not clear error for this Court to conclude that Hallum and Trent did

not know about Hill’s only August 2020 complaint. Next, Hill attempts to argue that this Court erred by not considering evidence showing that OSH’s corporate Human Resources department made the decision to

fire Hill. See ECF No. 57 at PageID.767. But Hill himself admits the evidence he relies on was not before the Court on summary judgment because he “only produced the portion of the email reflecting the local request, omitting the response showing

corporate-level approval.” Id. But Hill could have provided this evidence in his response, and he did not do so. So it was not clear error for this Court to not consider evidence that was not provided. Nor can this be considered newly discovered

evidence, since Hill clearly possessed this evidence at the time of the motion briefing. At bottom, Hill has not shown that he is entitled to reconsideration under Civil Rule 59(e) because there is no clear error in this Court’s September 2025 Opinion

and Order granting OSH’s motion for summary judgment. Accordingly, Hill’s motion will be denied. III. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, it is ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration, ECF No. 57, is DENIED. /s/Susan K. DeClercq SUSAN K. DeCLERCQ United States District Judge Dated: May 6, 2026