Jackson v. VHS Detroit Receiving Hosp., Inc., Case No. 2:14-cv-11600

KARON JACKSON, Plaintiff, v. VHS DETROIT RECEIVING HOSPITAL, INC., Defendant.

Case No. 2:14-cv-11600

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION

September 12, 2017

HONORABLE STEPHEN J. MURPHY, III

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT'S SECOND MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT [41]

Before the Court is the second motion for summary judgment of Defendant VHS Detroit Receiving Hospital, Inc. (DRH). The Court granted the first motion, and Plaintiff Karon Jackson appealed. The Court of Appeals subsequently reversed and remanded the case. DRH then moved for leave to file a second motion for summary judgment, which the Court granted. The Court has reviewed the briefs and finds that a hearing is unnecessary. See E.D. Mich. 7.1(f)(2). For the following reasons, the Court will deny DRH's second motion for summary judgment.

BACKGROUND

The facts of the case were laid out in the Court's previous order (ECF 21) and in the Court of Appeal's opinion (ECF 25). In brief: Jackson worked as a mental health technician at the Detroit Receiving Hospital from 1988 to 2013. She was terminated after she escorted the wrong patient out of the hospital's Crisis Center. She filed a charge of sex discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which ultimately issued her a notice of dismissal and her right to sue. She did sue, and the result is this case.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is proper if there is "no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A fact is material for purposes of summary judgment if its resolution would establish or refute an "essential element[] of a cause of action or defense asserted by the parties[.]" Kendall v. Hoover Co., 751 F.2d 171, 174 (6th Cir. 1984).

In considering a motion for summary judgment, the Court must view the facts and draw all inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Stiles ex rel. D.S. v. Grainger Cty., Tenn., 819 F.3d 834, 848 (6th Cir. 2016). The Court must then determine "whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52 (1986). And although the Court may not make credibility judgments or weigh the evidence, Moran v. Al Basit LLC, 788 F.3d 201, 204 (6th Cir. 2015), a mere "scintilla" of evidence is insufficient to survive summary judgment; "there must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff," Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252.

DISCUSSION

In sex-discrimination cases like this one, the Court employs the burden-shifting framework articulated in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). Under the framework, Jackson has the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination. The burden then shifts to DRH to articulate a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for its employment decision. Jackson then must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the DRH's justification was a pretext for discrimination. Id. at 804.

In her opposition to the first motion for summary judgment, Jackson argued that she was similarly situated to two other male employees who were not terminated for similar actions: Ronald Duncan and Lester Little. The Court found that Jackson established a prima facie case as to Duncan, ECF 21, PgID 292-93, and the Court of Appeals reached the same conclusion as to both Duncan and Little. Jackson v. VHS Detroit Receiving Hosp., Inc., 814 F.3d 769, 778 (6th Cir. 2016).

Nevertheless, DRH claimed it had a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for firing Jackson but not Duncan or Little. Specifically, DRH argued that Jackson's mistake was more egregious than either Duncan's or Little's mistakes. But the Court of Appeals concluded that:

when all relevant evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to Jackson, and all reasonable inferences are drawn in her favor, the circumstances surrounding her termination would permit a reasonable jury to infer that DRH's justifications for her termination were pretextual, and that she was instead terminated because of her sex.

Id. at 779, and remanded the case.

Now, DRH has sought and received leave to file a second motion for summary judgment for the purpose of expanding the factual record.¹ See ECF 36, PgID 357. The new facts are not voluminous: they are simply three short declarations by DRH employees² involved in and familiar with Jackson's termination. So the Court must revisit the McDonnell-Douglas framework to determine what outcome the new facts warrant.

I. Prima Facie Case

DRH implicitly argues that, had the Court of Appeals—and the Court—possessed the declarations it has now provided, they would not have determined that Jackson established a prima facie case. Jackson disagrees, and suggests that the new declarations reveal only the declarants' opinions on some discrete issues but do nothing to disrupt the Court of Appeals' determination.

The prima facie stage is a preliminary one, and the burden it imposes "is not onerous." Texas Dep't of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981). As the Court of Appeals emphasized here, "[o]ne common misapplication of the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine framework is the tendency to push all of the evidence into the prima facie stage and ignore the purpose for and application of the three stages." Jackson, 814 F.3d at 778 (quoting Provenzano v. LCI Holdings, Inc., 663 F.3d 806, 813 (6th Cir. 2011)). Rather, the prima facie stage merely "eliminates the most common nondiscriminatory reasons" for the adverse action and "raises an inference of discrimination only because we presume these acts, if otherwise unexplained, are more likely than not based on the consideration of impermissible factors." Burdine, 450 U.S. at 254.

Moore's and Heard's declarations shed a bit more light on why they believed Jackson's improper discharge was more serious than the rules violations of Duncan or Little. According to DRH, Duncan's and Little's infractions presented "no objectively serious consequences." ECF 41, PgID 429. For instance, although Little failed to search a patient (thereby allowing him to retain several knives) that particular patient did not (according to Moore's clinical judgment) pose a danger to himself or others. ECF 41-9, PgID 567-68. And although Duncan also improperly discharged a patient, the patient had "no signs orsymptoms of depression, psychosis, or violence" and was therefore "not a danger to herself or others." Id. at 565. In contrast, the patient Jackson discharged had admitted to "suicidal thoughts and plans to kill himself" and that he "had stopped taking his prescribed medications." Id. at 568. So unlike Little's and Duncan's patients, Jackson's patient "was diagnosed as being an imminent danger to himself and to others[.]" Id.

DRH says these facts make all the difference because "a plaintiff cannot establish a reasonable inference of discriminatory motive based on her 'employer's more severe treatment of more egregious circumstances.'" ECF 41, PgID 428 (quoting Jackson, 814 F.3d at 777). In support, DRH points to the two cases it relied upon at appeal: Ruth v. Children's Med. Ctr., 940 F.2d 662 (6th Cir.1991) (table), and Colvin v. Veterans Admin. Med. Ctr., 390 F. App'x 454 (6th Cir. 2010). In each case, the Court held that plaintiff pharmacists who dispensed ten times the appropriate dosage were dissimilar to other plaintiffs who made minors errors concerning dosages.

The Court of Appeals' found those cases distinguishable from Jackson's:

[U]nlike Ruth and Colvin, the employees violated the same rule, the results of that violation were the same, and the harm that ultimately befell the patients because of that violation was the same. Any perceived differences in egregiousness, therefore, are based on DRH's speculation over what might have come to pass.

Jackson, 814 F.3d at 781. By the appeals court's measure, it makes little difference—at the prima facie stage—that Heard now claims that she "treated rule/policy violation[s] more severely . . . if, in my clinical judgement, the violation resulted in the endangerment of a patient or others." ECF 41-15, PgID 597. The distinction rests on DRH's speculation.

Thus, even with the added clarity of the new declarations, the Court's previous finding remains unchanged. Duncan's and Little's circumstances were, in some respects, differentfrom Jackson's. But at the prima facie stage, Jackson need only show that her comparators' actions were of "comparable seriousness." Jackson, 814 F.3d at 778 (quoting Mitchell v. Toledo Hosp., 964 F.2d 577, 583 (6th Cir. 1992)). Moore's and Heard's declarations go more to DRH's burden of providing legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the difference in treatment. Thus, the Court finds, again, that Jackson has made a prima facie showing of discrimination.

II. Pretext

Because a prima facie showing creates a presumption of discrimination, the burden then shifts to the defendant to rebut that presumption by producing evidence that the adverse action was taken for a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 254. Once a legitimate reason is supplied, the burden then returns to the plaintiff, who "must identify evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that the proffered reason is actually a pretext for unlawful discrimination." Jackson, 814 F.3d at 779. She may satisfy the burden "by showing that the employer's proffered reason for the adverse action (1) has no basis in fact, (2) did not actually motivate the defendant's challenged conduct, or (3) was insufficient to warrant the challenged conduct." Id. (alterations omitted). And at the summary judgment stage, the Court considers all probative evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Id.

Jackson's argument, both here and on appeal, has been that DRH's proffered...