Garcia v. Primary Health Care, Inc.

604 F.Supp.3d 765

Peter GARCIA, Plaintiff,

v.PRIMARY HEALTH CARE, INC., Defendant.

No. 4:20-cv-00391-RGE-SBJ

United States District Court, S.D. Iowa, Central Division.

Signed May 23, 2022

Peter Garcia, Orlando, FL, Pro Se.

Thomas M. Cunningham, Kevin Bernard Patrick, Nyemaster Goode PC, Des Moines, IA, for Defendant.

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Defendant Primary Health Care, Inc. moves for summary judgment on all claims brought by Plaintiff Peter Garcia, who applied for and was not hired for the position of Medical Director at Primary Health. Garcia was 60 years old with a hearing impairment when he applied for the Medical Director position. He alleges Primary Health discriminated against him based upon his age and disability when it declined to hire him. Garcia further alleges Primary Health retaliated against him and defamed him. Because Garcia's claims each fail as a matter of law, the Court grants summary judgment in Primary Health's favor.

II. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

The following facts are either uncontested or viewed in the light most favorable to Garcia, the nonmoving party. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp. , 475 U.S. 574, 587–88, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).

Garcia is a medical doctor born in 1955 who applied for the position of Medical Director at Primary Health. Primary Health is a non-profit Federally Qualified Health Center that operates a community health center providing medical and dental care to underserved populations in Central Iowa. Primary Health used the Iowa Primary Care Association, a nonprofit association of community health centers of which Primary Health is a member, to recruit candidates for the Medical Director position. The Association, which would receive a fee of approximately $17,500 from Primary Health for successfully referring a Medical Director candidate, forwarded Garcia's application to Primary Health.

When Garcia applied for the Medical Director position in the fall of 2019, he had not been employed as a fulltime medical professional since 2011. He had been volunteering sporadically. Garcia has a hearing impairment. He had a cochlear implant in 2011, which assists him with amplifying the volume of speech and with speech differentiation.

During the application process, Rachael Miller, Human Resources Manager of Primary Health, was responsible for identifying and screening candidates for the Medical Director position. After receiving Garcia's materials from the Association, Miller scheduled a screening telephone interview with Garcia. Garcia initiated the phone call for the interview and utilized closed-captioning services during the call.

Prior to the call, Garcia did not request any accommodation or disclose that he would be using closed captioning. During the call, Garcia told Miller he was using closed-captioning services and asked Miller to speak more slowly multiple times. After the screening interview, Miller advanced Garcia's application to the next stage of the process, although she noted she was "not certain he would be the best fit." She indicated she liked him "a lot more than our last Medical Director candidate" and instructed the next interviewer to speak slowly to accommodate Garcia's needs.

Dr. Heidi Shreck, the previous Medical Director who had been promoted to Chief Medical Officer, instructed Miller to schedule an interview with Garcia. The exchanges between Miller and Garcia to schedule the next interview occurred via email. The emails included discussions of ways to conduct the remote interview, in light of Garcia's hearing impairment. In one such email sent on January 15, 2020, Garcia stated:

Rachel:

It does not appear you have paid close attention to my emails in the past. I have informed you that the closed caption system that I use does not work well when people call in. I am not sure why. Yet you continue to insist on this. Secondly, if the people in Iowa are all planning to be in a single room and use a speaker phone allow me to interject that this arrangement has not worked well either in the past. The further the speaker is from the actual microphone [the] poorer the transmission and the more difficult for the transcription service. Therefore from my experience what you have proposed may work but its chances of success are modest at best.

Def.’s App. Supp. Mot. Summ. J. App 103, ECF No. 37-4. Miller responded with an email including questions as to whether better options exist and asking Garcia to "please let me know what you think would work best for you." Id. Ultimately, Garcia proposed having his wife repeat to him questions posed by the interviewers over Zoom with him responding. Primary Health agreed to this plan, but also planned on having a specialist on hand to type in questions for Garcia to read, if necessary.

Sherry Gomis, Primary Health's Chief Human Resources Officer, participated in the interview with Shreck and Garcia. No one asked about Garcia's age during the interview, or at any other time in the application process. No one asked and Garcia did not disclose whether he would need any reasonable accommodations to perform the essential functions of the Medical Director position. Gomis and Shreck asked open-ended questions such as "Why should we hire you for this job?" and "Talk about your experience working in an environment that requires delivering results relating to both quality and financial outcomes?"

After the interview, Shreck decided that Primary Health would not further pursue Garcia as a candidate for the Medical Director position. Miller notified the Association of Primary Health's decision. Miller also notified Garcia.

Dr. Jason Kessler, a pediatrician who was under 50 years old, had been serving as the interim Medical Director since July 2019. In July 2020 Primary Health changed Kessler's designation to a regular appointment. The position remains open and Primary Health is interested in hiring a second Medical Director with an internal medicine or a family practice specialty.

Additional facts are set forth below as necessary.

B. Procedural Background

Garcia filed suit in this Court in December 2020, alleging six claims for relief. First, Garcia alleges discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et. seq. Garcia claims Primary Health violated the ADEA when it failed to hire him for the Medical Director position because of his age. Second, Garcia alleges Primary Health discriminated against him based upon his hearing impairment in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. Third, Garcia alleges fraudulent misrepresentation in violation of Iowa law. Fourth, Garcia alleges defamation in violation of Iowa law. Fifth, Garcia alleges Primary Health retaliated against him in violation of the ADEA and the ADA when it took action against him for "voicing a complaint regarding his treatment as an applicant as it related to his disability." Compl. 17, ECF No. 1. Sixth, Garcia alleges the same discrimination—on the basis of age and disability—and retaliation as violations of the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

Primary Health moves for summary judgment on all claims, arguing Garcia's claims each fail as a matter of law. Def.’s Mot. Summ. J., ECF No. 37. Garcia resists, except as to his claim of fraudulent misrepresentation, which he abandons. ECF No. 52. Each party requests a hearing. See ECF Nos. 37, 52. Finding the parties’ briefing and the written materials submitted adequately present the issues, the Court decides the motion without oral argument. See LR 7(c); Fed. R. Civ. P. 78(b).

III. LEGAL STANDARD

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, the Court must grant a party's motion for summary judgment if there are no genuine issues of material fact in dispute and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett , 477 U.S. 317, 322–23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). A genuine issue of material fact exists where the issue "may reasonably be resolved in favor of either party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). "Only disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment. Factual disputes that are irrelevant or unnecessary will not be counted." Id. at 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505. Where there is a genuine dispute of facts, those "facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Ricci v. DeStefano , 557 U.S. 557, 586, 129 S.Ct. 2658, 174 L.Ed.2d 490 (2009) (quoting Scott v. Harris , 550 U.S. 372, 380, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007) ).

To defeat a motion for summary judgment, the nonmoving party "may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of his pleading, but ... must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Anderson , 477 U.S. at 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505 (omission in original) (quoting a prior version of Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e) ). "Where the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue for trial" and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Torgerson v. City of Rochester , 643 F.3d 1031, 1042–43 (8th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (quoting Ricci , 557 U.S. at 586, 129 S.Ct. 2658 ).

At summary judgment, courts do not "treat discrimination differently from other ultimate questions of fact." Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc. , 530 U.S. 133, 148, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000) (quoting St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks , 509 U.S. 502, 524, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993) ); see also Torgerson , 643 F.3d at 1043 ("There is no ‘discrimination case exception’ to the application of summary judgment." (quoting Fercello v. Cnty. of Ramsey , 612 F.3d 1069, 1077 (8th Cir. 2010) )). Courts may not "second-guess" employers’ business decisions...