Fleming v. Laakso
| Decision Date | 05 February 2019 |
| Docket Number | 18-CV-1527 (RA) (BCM) |
| Parties | NATALIE YKENHOFF FLEMING, Plaintiff, v. DR. ULLA K. LAAKSO, MD, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION TO THE HON. RONNIE ABRAMS
Plaintiff Natalie Ykenhoff Fleming, who is representing herself, seeks damages from Dr. Ulla K. Laakso, M.D., a psychiatrist.1 Plaintiff's employer, Mount Sinai Hospital (Mount Sinai), referred plaintiff to Dr. Laakso for an assessment of her fitness to return to work. Plaintiff alleges that Dr. Laakso defamed her by falsely stating, in her treatment notes, that plaintiff had a history of depression, and by giving plaintiff "negative diagnoses." Now before the Court for report and recommendation is Dr. Laakso's motion to dismiss all of plaintiff's claims or, in the alternative for a more definite statement. (Dkt. No. 16.) Because plaintiff alleges no facts that would support either federal question or diversity jurisdiction, I respectfully recommend that this action be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) and 12(h)(3). Should the Court reach the merits, I recommend that the case be dismissed for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), without leave to replead.
Plaintiff was employed as a Senior Entitlement Coordinator and Financial Counselor atMount Sinai's Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery (the Center). Compl. at ECF page 29.2 Beginning in January 2017, when three of plaintiff's hats went "mysteriously missing," only to reappear next to her desk, she suspected that her colleagues were plotting against her. Compl. at ECF page 24. Plaintiff's fears intensified when she found "a black dust/powdery substance" in her office, initially on her desk and then, on October 10, 2017, in her desk drawer, on top of her business cards. Id.; see also Supp. at ECF page 6. That is when plaintiff realized that her colleagues "must have been putting this powder on my desk all along." Compl. at ECF page 24.
The October 10 incident was "very traumatizing" to plaintiff, who interpreted the black powder as "a message being sent that this was either racial since everything was in black or the dirt stood for the dirt over my casket and the box of business cards was my casket." Compl. at ECF page 25; see also Supp. at ECF page 8. Plaintiff suspected her direct supervisor, Zil Goldstein, as well as two other employees, Theresa Soto O'Donnell and Leslie Larue. Compl. at ECF page 25; Supp. at ECF page 8. Plaintiff sought redress from numerous Mount Sinai administrators, including its Chief Human Resources Officer. Compl. at ECF page 25-27, 28-29, 31, 33-34; Compl. Add. at ECF pages 26-27; Supp. at ECF pages 11-21. However, she continued to experience what she believed to be harassment by Goldstein, O'Donnell, and Larue. For example,on October 30, 2017, some of plaintiff's personal papers disappeared from a bag under her desk while she was meeting with Goldstein. Compl. at ECF page 26. Plaintiff asserts that Goldstein must have told another employee to "go into my bag and my desk while I was in the office." Id. A few weeks later, in mid-November, 2017, plaintiff had problems with her personal email accounts, which she also attributed to Goldstein. Plaintiff explains that her supervisor had "a way to spy on my computer at home such as spyware on my phone and home computer." Id. at ECF page 26.
On November 3, 2017, plaintiff went to the Mount Sinai Employee Health Service (EHS) complaining of dryness, cracks, and a burning sensation in her hands after "her desk drawer was tampered with or broken into" and black powder was "sprinkled over her business cards." Compl. Add. at ECF page 19. Plaintiff was advised to monitor her condition and cleared to return to work. Id. On November 15, 2017, plaintiff went to the Mount Sinai emergency room complaining of shortness of breath, dizziness, and headache, beginning after she was exposed to the black powder. Compl. at ECF page 44. She reported feeling "very anxious, nervous about the event," and had "flashbacks." Id. Plaintiff was given ibuprofen for her headache and discharged the same day, with instructions to follow up with her primary care physician. Id. at ECF page 50.
On November 22, 2017, matters came to a head when plaintiff "called the police on Zil [Goldstein] and Theresa [Soto O'Donnell]" because "I felt they were hacking into my accounts and I was feeling that they were stalking me." Compl. at ECF page 27; see also Supp. at ECF pages 22-24. The police "never took the report." Compl. at ECF page 27. Instead, "Zil made the cops call EMS to take me out of there as if I were a crazy person." Id.; but see Supp. at ECF page 23 (). On the way out, plaintiff "told Zil and Theresa in front of everyone in the office that they will both burn in hell for what they are doing to me." Supp. at ECF pages 23-24.
On November 27, 2017, when plaintiff returned to work, she was sent to EHS, where she was told that she "needed to see a psych doctor," Compl. at ECF page 27, and placed on medical leave. Id. at ECF page 36. While at EHS, plaintiff told physician Jason Pachman, M.D. about the black powder, explaining that it was placed in her desk drawer "deliberately to cause her to react and to appear 'crazy.'" Compl. Add. at ECF page 17. She also told Dr. Pachman, among other things, that her colleagues sent her "'black faced' emails" and attempted to break into her Facebook account. Id. According to Dr. Pachman, plaintiff "[d]emonstrated no insight into how someone else might find her claims about her supervisors to be paranoid and odd." Id. at ECF page 18. A few weeks later, after plaintiff's primary care physician refused to "clear [her] for return to work," Supp. at ECF page 25,3 plaintiff was told that she needed to be "cleared by a psychiatrist," id., and was referred to Dr. Laakso. Id. at ECF pages 26-28; see also Compl. at ECF pages 27, 36.
Plaintiff saw Dr. Laakso on January 9, 2018. Compl. at ECF pages 9-10, 13-18; see also Compl. Add. at ECF page 15; Supp. at ECF page 28. At the appointment, plaintiff filled out a questionnaire in which she reported her medical history, listed all of her current medications, and stated that the "main reason" for her visit was "Trauma, Anxiety from some one putting an attempt with black powder on my life." Compl. at ECF page 14. Plaintiff also filled out a "mood evaluation" questionnaire in which she reported symptoms of irritability, racing thoughts, "[t]oo distractable," and "too active." Id. at ECF page 16. Asked if she had experienced "post partum blues" when she had her children, plaintiff said "yes, many women go through this," but denied any "mental health issues or substance abuse problems." Compl. at ECF page 27.
In her notes, Dr. Laakso wrote that plaintiff presented with "paranoid delusions about coworkers," and that her past psychiatric history included "rec[urrent] depression since 20s." Id. at ECF page 9. Under "diagnostic impression," Dr. Laakso wrote, "r/o [rule out] bipolar disorder F. 31.2" and "r/o delusional disorder F. 22." Id.; see also id. at ECF page 10 (same diagnoses).4 Dr. Laakso prescribed Aripiprazole (Abilify) and Clonazepam (Klonopin), and concluded that plaintiff was "unable to work." Id. at ECF page 10.
Also on January 9, 2018, plaintiff signed a form authorizing "any" physician having information concerning her physical or mental condition to provide that information to EHS "for the purpose of determining medical substantiation and the ability to return to work." Pl. Opp. (Dkt. No. 19) at ECF page 7. The following day, plaintiff's disability carrier, Liberty Mutual, asked Dr. Laakso for her office treatment notes and a "Functional Status Evaluation." Id. at 19-22. Dr. Laakso charged plaintiff $65 "to have a medical substantiation form" sent to Liberty Mutual, but failed to send the form, Compl. at ECF page 36, and in fact handed the paperwork back to plaintiff on January 23, 2018, at which point she "suggested another Psychiatrist to be seen by." Supp. at ECF page 30. Plaintiff later told Dr. Pachman that she did not wish to see Dr. Laakso again, "because I was tired of this back and forth and besides I did not like her anyway." Id.; see also Compl. Add. at ECF page 15 ().
Plaintiff sued Dr. Laakso on February 16, 2018, alleging that defendant's statementconcerning her "past mental history" was "false." Compl. at ECF page 5 (); see also id. at ECF page 27 (); Supp. at ECF page 28 (). In addition, plaintiff challenges Dr. Laakso's diagnostic impression, alleging that defendant "lied in her assessment," and "placed these negative diagnosis [sic] such as psychosis, Bipolar and paranoid and other things that are not true about me," Compl. at ECF page 6, because she was "working on behalf of the hospital to find me unstable and not fit for duty." Supp. at ECF page 28. Finally, plaintiff complains that Dr. Laakso "prescribed me hard psych drugs that made me feel very sick with all of my other severe health [i]ssues." Compl. at ECF page 6. Plaintiff seeks compensation for the $65 that she was charged for the disability paperwork, reimbursement for the expenses she incurred in travelling to Dr. Laakso's Manhattan office, and unspecified damages for her "[e]motional stress, aggravation and grief." Id.5
On July 16, 2018, Dr. Laakso moved to dismiss plaintiff's claims against...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Conti v. Doe
...welfare of his child ... is sufficient to support a conditional privilege on the part of the parent); Fleming v. Laakso , No. 18-CV-1527, 2019 WL 959521, at *10 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 5, 2019) (doctor's communications to hospital concerning plaintiff's mental health "fall comfortably within the com......