Taylor v. Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare

DORISTEEN TAYLOR, Plaintiff, v. METHODIST LE BONHEUR HEALTHCARE, Defendant.

No. 2:19-cv-02796-MSN-atc

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE WESTERN DIVISION

June 22, 2021

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Before the Court is Defendant Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare's ("Methodist" or "Defendant") Motion for Summary Judgment, filed on February 22, 2021 (the "Motion"). (ECF No. 56.)¹ Pro se Plaintiff Doristeen Taylor ("Taylor") filed her Opposition to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment on April 7, 2021 (the "Response"). (ECF No. 62.) Methodist filed its Reply Brief in Support of its Motion for Summary Judgment on April 21, 2021 (the "Reply"). (ECF No. 63.) For the following reasons, this Court recommends that the Motion be granted in its entirety.

PROPOSED FINDINGS OF FACT

As a threshold matter, the Court must address which facts are undisputed for purposes of ruling on the Motion. Contemporaneous with the Motion and the accompanying memorandum(ECF No. 57), Methodist filed a statement of thirty-five undisputed material facts ("Def.'s Facts") (ECF No. 58). Taylor responded to Methodist's statement of facts, indicating dispute with some facts and no dispute with others. (ECF No. 62-2.)

Taylor also submitted her own declaration (the "Declaration") contemporaneous with her response to Methodist's statement of facts. (See ECF No. 62-3.) Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c)(4) provides that "[a]n affidavit or declaration used to support or oppose a motion must be made on personal knowledge, set out facts that would be admissible in evidence, and show that the affiant or declarant is competent to testify on the matters stated." Taylor's Declaration is consistent with this provision, as well as the rules governing unsworn declarations under penalty of perjury under 28 U.S.C. § 1746, and thus can be considered in ruling on the Motion. See Haywood v. Brennan, No. 2:18-cv-02473-MSN-cgc, 2020 WL 7480807, at *5 n.7 (W.D. Tenn. Dec. 18, 2020) (discussing how courts may rely on "unsworn, signed declarations as evidence in deciding motions for summary judgment under Rule 56 if the declaration is: 1) in writing, 2) dated, and 3) verifies that its content is 'true under penalty of perjury'") (citing Vanguard Transp. Sys., Inc. v. Volvo Trucks of N. Am., Inc., No. 2:04-cv-889, 2006 WL 2373273, at *6 (S.D. Ohio Aug. 14, 2006)); see also Pollock v. Pollock, 154 F.3d 601, 611 n.20 (6th Cir. 1998) (noting the statutory exemption under 28 U.S.C. § 1746 that "permits an unsworn declaration to substitute for a conventional affidavit if the statement contained in the declaration is made under penalty of perjury, certified as true and correct, dated, and signed").

However, Taylor has failed to properly dispute many of the facts she describes as disputed. For some of the disputed facts, Taylor offers no citations to the record to support her contention. Such responses are wholly insufficient under Local Rule 56.1(b), which requires that"[e]ach disputed fact must be supported by specific citation to the record." Local Rule 56.1(d) further provides:

Failure to respond to a moving party's statement of material facts . . . within the time periods provided by these rules shall indicate that the asserted facts are not disputed for purposes of summary judgment.

See also Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e) (providing that, if a party fails to properly address an assertion of fact, the court can consider the fact undisputed for purposes of the motion). The facts Taylor disputes but offers no supporting citation for are therefore deemed undisputed.

In other instances, Taylor disputes facts "in part . . . because relevant information is missing." (See, e.g., ECF No. 62-2 ¶¶ 4, 6, 7, 9.) Taylor then cites to her Declaration, which contains additional, related facts but does not contain any information contradicting the facts as stated by Methodist. (See ECF No. 62-2; ECF No. 62-3 ¶¶ 4, 6, 9.) Taylor has thus failed to "demonstrate[e] that the fact is disputed," as required by Local Rule 56.1(b). In these instances where Taylor has merely supplied additional information that does not bring the facts stated by Methodist into dispute, those facts are deemed undisputed. See Sanders v. Baptist Mem'l Hosp., No. 14-CV-2414-SHL-tmp, 2015 WL 5797607, at *1 (W.D. Tenn. Aug. 19, 2015), report and recommendation adopted, 2015 WL 5797618 (W.D. Tenn. Oct. 1, 2015), aff'd, 15-6136 (6th Cir. Apr. 11, 2016) (collecting cases in which courts in this district deemed as undisputed facts that plaintiffs failed to respond to consistent with Local Rule 56.1(b)).

As to other facts, Taylor indicates that she "lacks sufficient information to form a belief as to the accuracy" of the statement. (See ECF No. 62-2 ¶¶ 5, 8, 11, 25.) Discovery in this case closed on November 30, 2020 (ECF No. 45), and the time for Taylor to gather information to refute Methodist's proof has passed. To the extent Taylor has failed to demonstrate a dispute with Methodist's facts because she lacks sufficient information to do so, those facts are deemedundisputed. See Baxter Bailey Invs., Inc. v. Mars Petcare US, Inc., No. 11-2860-STA-dkv, 2012 WL 1965612, at *1 n.1, *2-3 (W.D. Tenn. May 31, 2012) (denying the plaintiff's motion for additional discovery and deeming certain facts admitted when discovery had closed and the plaintiff had asserted he lacked sufficient information to respond to the allegations); Dodd v. Chrysler Grp. LLC, No. 1:11-cv-01073-JDB, 2012 WL 1565640, at *2 n.2, n.3 (W.D. Tenn. May 1, 2012) (deeming certain facts admitted for the purposes of summary judgment after the plaintiff asserted that he was "without sufficient information to admit or deny" them); Doe v. Belmont Univ., 367 F. Supp. 3d 732, 747 n.13 (M.D. Tenn. 2019), case dismissed, No. 19-5369, 2019 WL 5079251 (6th Cir. Sept. 18, 2019) (accepting as undisputed those facts that were objectively verifiable, despite the plaintiff's assertion that he lacked sufficient information to assess their truth but made no attempt to offer contrary evidence).

Given the foregoing, the Court finds the following facts are undisputed for purposes of the Motion:

On April 1, 2018, Taylor applied for a registered nurse position in Methodist's Cardiovascular Step-Down Unit. (ECF No. 62-2 ¶ 2.) The Step-Down Unit houses patients who are recovering from serious medical illnesses and procedures and provides a level of care between intensive care and the general medical-surgical wards. (Id. ¶ 3.) After Methodist conducted an initial telephone interview with Taylor in April 2018, Taylor withdrew her application due to "unforeseen circumstances." (Id. ¶¶ 4, 6.)² On July 5, 2018, Taylor asked to be reconsidered for the position. (ECF No. 62-2 ¶ 7.)³ Tracie Bardwell, Methodist's hiringleader and clinical director, and Rachel Cardenas, its patient care coordinator, conducted an in-person interview of Taylor at Methodist on July 20, 2018. (ECF No. 62-2 ¶ 9.)⁴ Methodist employs behavioral interviewing methods, in which interviewees are asked to apply previous behaviors and actions to situations. (ECF No. 62-2 ¶ 10.) Methodist believes this approach allows it to gauge the interviewee's competency and to predict future performance and behaviors. (Id.)

Methodist did not offer Taylor a job after her interview. (Id. ¶ 21.)⁵ It found Taylor's interview answers, as well as those from her November 30, 2020, deposition, to be "rambling or circular." (ECF No. 62-2 ¶ 29.)⁶ At the time Taylor interviewed for the position at Methodist, Taylor was licensed as a nurse, but she had not worked in that capacity in the previous ten years. (ECF No. 62-2 ¶ 16.) Taylor did not seek any discovery as to the age of the person who was hired for the position. (Id. ¶ 28.) The person Methodist eventually hired for the position was older than forty. (Id. ¶ 25.)⁷ Since 2018, Methodist has hired nine registered nurses in the Step-Down Unit in their forties and fifties. (Id.) Methodist's Bardwell or Cardenas served as the hiring leader for each of those hiring decisions. (Id.) Taylor retained no documents relating to her interview with Methodist. (Id. ¶ 35.)

Taylor's Complaint asserts that she "was denied a Registered Nurse position on the Cardiovascular Step-Down Unit by Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tennessee inJuly 2018 because of my age, in violation of Age Discrimination in the Employment Act of 1967, as amended." (ECF No. 1, at 4.) The basis for Taylor's claims against Methodist, as asserted in her Complaint, Response, and Declaration, is that Bardwell stressed multiple times during Taylor's interview that her age would impede her ability to do the job as a nurse. (ECF No. 1, at 4; ECF No. 1-1 ¶¶ 1, 2; Response, at 3, 4, 5, 6; Declaration ¶¶ 11, 12, 16.) Methodist denies that Bardwell made those statements but asserts that, even if she did, and even if all of the facts are construed in Taylor's favor, as is required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, summary judgment is still warranted. (Motion, at 13-14 n.2; Reply, at 5 n.3.)

PROPOSED CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

I. Standard of Review for Summary Judgment

Courts evaluate motions for summary judgment under Rule 56(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. "One of the principle purposes of the summary judgment rule is to isolate and dispose of factually unsupported claims or defenses." Harper v. City of Cleveland, 781 F. App'x 389, 392 (6th Cir. 2019) (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-24 (1986)). Thus, summary judgment is appropriate "if the movant shows that 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); Wilmington Tr. Co. v. AEP Generating Co., 859 F.3d 365, 370 (6th Cir. 2017) ("Summary judgment is proper when, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the moving party is...