Brown v. Ohio State University

• Decision Date: 23 March 2009
• Docket Number: Case No. 2:07cv479.
• Citation: Brown v. Ohio State University, 616 F.Supp.2d 740 (S.D. Ohio 2009)
• Parties: Katrina BROWN, Plaintiff v. The OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio

616 F.Supp.2d 740

Katrina BROWN, Plaintiff v. The OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 2:07cv479.

United States District Court, S.D. Ohio, Eastern Division.

March 23, 2009.

Mark Steven Coco, Harris, McClellan, Binau & Cox, Columbus, OH, for Plaintiff.

Jack Wilson Decker, Mahjabeen F. Qadir, Ohio Attorney General's Office, Employment

Law Section, Columbus, OH, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

JAMES L. GRAHAM, District Judge.

This matter is before the court on a motion for summary judgment, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. 56(c) filed by defendants The Ohio State University (OSU) and its President Gordon Gee¹. Plaintiff is Katrina Brown (Brown), a former employee of OSU.

I. Factual Background

Plaintiff Katrina Brown is an African-American female who began working for the Ohio State University Medical Center (OSUMC) in 1992. Defendant OSU owns and operates OSU Medical Center East (OSUMC East) and at all relevant times was Brown's employer. Between 1992 and 2000, Brown was in various nursing and managerial positions at OSUMC. In March of 2000, Brown transferred to OSUMC East to work as a staff nurse in the operating room. At that time, Jerry Mansfield (Mansfield) was Administrative Director of Nursing Services at OSUMC East and at some point in 2000, Beth Haselwood (Haselwood) became Director of Perioperative Services at OSUMC East. In 2001, Haselwood promoted Brown to "program manager" and four months later to "Associate Director of Perioperative Services." The Perioperative Services Department ("Department") includes pre-op, the operating room (OR), PACU (postoperative recovery), endoscopy, and central sterile supply (CSS). (doc. 25 p. 17, 22; doc. 30 p. 25).

As Associate Director of the Department, Brown received positive performance evaluations (referred to simply as a "PACE"). A PACE is a written document that contains an annual review of an employee's performance by her supervisor. The PACE contains an "overall summary of performance," including "exceeds expectations," "meets expectations," "needs improvement," or "unsatisfactory." (See e.g., doc. 23-14). The PACE is also broken down into categories, such as "Leadership" and "Resource Management," which use the same rating system but also includes comments from the supervisor regarding the employee's performance.

In early 2004, Haselwood was promoted to Director of Inpatient Services and upon her recommendation, Jerry Mansfield promoted Brown to succeed Haselwood as Director of Perioperative Services. The Director is "responsible for managing the operations, evaluating manager/employee performance, demonstrating customer satisfaction (internal/external) ... and strategic and operational planning and program development." (doc. 23-12 p. 2). The Director's duties include developing short and long term goals, effectively communicating and mentoring staff, developing and implementing programs to improve outcomes, services, operations and costs, developing and communicating well-defined budget plans and plans cost saving initiatives, working to improve productivity, identifying opportunities for improvement, and correcting factors contributing to problematic outcomes in patient care and departmental services. (doc. 23-12). According to prior Director Haselwood, the Director is generally responsible for "everything in the department," including determining the status of the department, looking toward improvements, planning and implementing plans to move the department forward. (doc. 30-3 p. 19-20).

Approximately five months into her position as Director, in July 2004, Brown received a PACE evaluation ("2004 PACE") from Mansfield indicating that she generally "meets expectations." (doc. 23-14). However, under each area of responsibility, he included areas of concern that Brown was expected to work on over the next year. For instance, under "Customer Focus," Brown was told to watch for "periop staff/surgeon in tray/sets consistency and materials management." (doc. 23-14, p. 3). Under "Leadership," Mansfield noted that Brown needed to "remember to set achievable goals and monitor performance against the goals." (Id.). Mansfield also noted that Brown needed to "enhance [her] oversight of OR Materials Management," to facilitate teamwork, and to "follow through on orthopedic implant pricing." (Id. p. 4, 5). Brown signed the 2004 PACE and stated that her goals for the year were to address these concerns, including staff morale, implant pricing, improving budgetary expenses, and increasing patient satisfaction. (Id. p. 6). In actuality, Brown did not believe that the comments in her 2004 PACE signified any performance problems on her part. (See e.g., doc 23-2, p. 112-122). Rather, she felt the comments reflected Mansfield's failure to understand the Department and/or related to matters not within her responsibility or control. (doc. 23-2, p. 113; p. 115-118). There is no evidence that Brown communicated her opinions or understanding of her role to Mansfield. In fact, in her deposition, Brown stated that she did not tell Mansfield she disagreed with his evaluation and areas of concern because he was her boss and would put whatever he wanted in her PACE. (doc. 23-2 p. 118; p. 140; p. 146, stating, "whatever [Mansfield] said I just, you know, I agreed with..it wasn't going to make a difference what I said"). Brown's main concern with regards to her PACE was whether or not she received "meets expectations" and was unconcerned about the comments placed in her PACE by her supervisor. (doc. 23-2 p. 118).

In January of 2005, the OR nurse manager position was filed, over Brown's objections and upon Mansfield's recommendation, by Mary Ferraro (Ferraro). Brown did not get along with Ferraro and felt that Ferraro was undermining her authority and was hoping to take Brown's position as Director. Brown believes that Ferraro complained to Mansfield about Brown and accordingly, Brown began to feel upset and as though she were being unfairly criticized. She also felt that Mansfield treated her differently than he had Haselwood because, for instance, Brown had no OR nurse manager for a period of time, which Haselwood always had, and because Brown had to share an office with nurse manager Claudia Pratt, while Haselwood had her own office².

In August 2005, Brown received another PACE ("2005 PACE") from Mansfield that rated her as "meets expectations" in all categories. When she received the evaluation, Brown was told that if "this same level of performance as described in the evaluation ... continued, it would not be meets expectation the following year." (doc. 32-3 p. 24; see also doc. 23-2 p. 163). The evaluation also included several detailed comments from Mansfield about areas of concern with both Brown's leadership and with the Department itself, some of which echoed concerns set forth in the 2004 PACE. These included, among other concerns, materials management oversight, staff/surgeon satisfaction, surgical volume, and communication issues. Brown's own goals and areas to watch as set out in her 2005 PACE were to build surgical volume, improve communication, and to continue to address operational challenges such as block scheduling, equipment issues, and staffing. (doc. 23-15 p. 5).

In addition, the evaluation required that Brown:

1) Read the assessment [the assessment was a "Perioperative Services Assessment" prepared by Mansfield, (doc. 23-17), hereinafter referred to as the "Assessment"]

2) Develop an action plan that includes goals/objectives/ timeframes and responsible parties to improve the specified areas outlined throughout the PACE.

3) Provide a copy of your plan to your supervisor within 30 days.

4) Provide a written progress report and meet monthly with your supervisor providing evidence of achievement of mutually agreed upon outcomes. (doc. 23-15 p. 8).

The Assessment, dated August 2, 2005, was a document created by Mansfield in order to "document assessment findings post review of perioperative operations over the past six months." (doc. 23-17). The Assessment sets forth various areas of concern within Perioperative Services, including "quality indicators" which were trending in the "wrong direction," including decreased volume in the OR, decrease in antibiotic timeliness, decrease in block time used, increase in case length time, and increased turnover time. (doc. 23-17 p. 2). In creating the Assessment, Mansfield was hoping to determine "how he could help Brown be successful in her job." (doc. 32-7 at p. 2).

As part of her 2005 PACE, Brown was also required to create an action plan for the Department. In general, an action plan is a document that sets forth goals for a department, outcome measure for each goal, tactics and strategies to achieve each goal and a completion date. Brown testified that, despite the requirement that an action plan be provided within 30 days, Mansfield told her that she did not need to write an action plan because the Assessment did not really concern her. (doc. 23-3 p. 34). She did however create a "response" to the Assessment, which was received after the 30 day deadline. (doc. 23-18; doc. 32-4 p. 1)³. The response submitted by Brown addressed the main areas of concern as set forth in the Assessment (such as decreased surgical volume, decrease in the utilization of block time, and increase in turn over time), the person responsible for that area of concern, and "comments" which included goals or plans for addressing the item. For instance, addressing the concern about decreased surgical volume, Brown listed herself as one of many individuals responsible for working on that item and then noted the need to continue to assess surgical satisfaction, continue to work on increasing anesthesia staffing, continue replacing old surgical equipment, and to actively release block time to surgeons. (Id. at p. 1). After reviewing her plan, however, Mansfield determined that it was "unsatisfactory to address the issues that...