Flick v. S. Ill. Healthcare, NFP

• Decision Date: 05 November 2014
• Docket Number: No. 5–13–0319.,5–13–0319.
• Citation: 21 N.E.3d 82
• Parties: Cindy FLICK, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS HEALTHCARE, NFP, d/b/a Southern Illinois Hospital Services, Inc., Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

21 N.E.3d 82

Cindy FLICK, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.SOUTHERN ILLINOIS HEALTHCARE, NFP, d/b/a Southern Illinois Hospital Services, Inc., Defendant–Appellee.

No. 5–13–0319.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District.

Nov. 5, 2014.

L. Douglas Gill, Hughes Law Firm, Carbondale, IL, for Appellant.

Shari R. Rhode, Rhode & Jackson, P.C., Carbondale, IL, for Appellee.

OPINION

Justice CHAPMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 The plaintiff, Cindy Flick, worked for the defendant, Southern Illinois Healthcare, NFP, as the director of its medical laboratories. Shortly after raising concerns about one laboratory's compliance with federal regulations, the plaintiff was presented with a severance agreement. She chose not to resign, and her supervisor did not terminate her employment at that time. Two years later, however, the plaintiff was again presented with a severance agreement. This time, she was terminated after refusing to accept the agreement. The plaintiff filed a suit alleging retaliatory discharge. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, finding that the plaintiff failed to present any evidence to establish a causal connection between her raising concerns and her termination. The primary basis for the court's ruling was a gap of nearly two years between the time she raised those concerns and the time she was fired. The plaintiff appeals, arguing that genuine issues of material fact remained regarding the causation issue. We affirm.

¶ 2 The defendant operates three hospitals in southern Illinois. The plaintiff was hired as the manager of the medical laboratory at one of those hospitals in 2000. In 2001, she was promoted to the position of director of laboratories. In her deposition, the plaintiff explained that she approached her supervisor, Memorial Hospital administrator George Maroney, and suggested ways to consolidate some of the functions of the three labs that would make their operation more efficient. Maroney told her to write up a job description for a new position which would be responsible for implementing the plaintiff's suggestions for consolidation. She did so, and Maroney promoted her to the new position. This promotion came with a “substantial” pay increase.

¶ 3 In her role as director of laboratories, the plaintiff continued to manage the laboratory at Memorial Hospital; in addition, she oversaw some of the functions of the laboratories at the defendant's other hospitals—Herrin and St. Joseph. However, she did not have direct supervisory authority over the employees of the Herrin and St. Joseph labs; instead, she oversaw their operations in what she described as a “consulting role.” As a result of the consolidations of operations the plaintiff recommended, the responsibility and authority of the lab managers at Herrin Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital decreased.

¶ 4 In July 2003, the plaintiff discovered quality control failures in the chemistry department at Herrin Hospital's lab. According to the plaintiff, this situation amounted to a violation of the federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) (42 U.S.C. § 263a et seq. (2000) ). She reported her concerns to Dr. Padmalatha, the medical director of the Herrin Hospital lab, and Al Green, the manager of the lab. In August 2003, she presented a corrective action plan to Green to address the quality control issues. The plaintiff did not believe Green was taking appropriate actions to fix the problem. Therefore, she presented her concerns to Maroney and Rebecca Ashton, the administrator of Herrin Hospital, who was Green's direct supervisor. According to the plaintiff, she discussed the matter with Dr. Padmalatha, who agreed that corrective measures needed to be taken.

¶ 5 On November 10, 2003, Maroney called the plaintiff into his office. He told her that her management style was not conducive to a long-term relationship with the hospital and presented her with a severance agreement. Two days later, on November 12, the plaintiff called the defendant's compliance help line to report her concerns regarding possible CLIA violations in the Herrin Hospital laboratory. On November 18, the plaintiff once again met with Maroney. She told him that she did not wish to accept the severance agreement. Maroney did not terminate the plaintiff's employment at this time; however, he did limit her responsibilities as director of laboratories. Specifically, he told her that she was to have no role in the operation of the Herrin Hospital lab. According to the defendant, Maroney told the plaintiff that as a result of this limit on her responsibilities, the plaintiff's salary would be frozen and she would be ineligible for annual raises. This was because the salary increase she received when she was promoted to director of laboratories was based on her oversight of all three labs.

¶ 6 As a result of the plaintiff's call to the compliance help line, compliance officer Christie Connelly conducted an investigation of her claims. Connelly found no CLIA violations, but did find violations of the defendant's own internal policies, for which corrective measures were necessary. Connelly's report was issued in May 2004.

¶ 7 In the fall of 2004, the defendant began the process of converting to a new computer system, called Meditech. The first department scheduled to make the conversion was the labs. The plaintiff, as Memorial Hospital's lab manager, was responsible for seeing that lab personnel did all they needed to do to make the transition to the new system smoothly. This included scheduling training and testing sessions.

¶ 8 The labs switched to the Meditech system in September 2005. The transition did not go smoothly, and the lab at Memorial Hospital encountered significantly more problems than the labs at Herrin and St. Joseph. According to the defendant's vice president of information technology, most of the problems could have been avoided had the Memorial lab employees spent more time testing the system before the conversion.

¶ 9 On October 12, 2005, Maroney once again offered the plaintiff a severance package. She again declined. This time, Maroney terminated her employment. He told her that the reason for her termination was her role in the problems with the conversion to the Meditech system.

¶ 10 In February 2006, the plaintiff filed a petition alleging that she was discharged in retaliation for reporting possible violations of CLIA. In an amended complaint, she alleged, “After the attempt to terminate plaintiff's employment in November 2003, plaintiff experienced a hostile and retaliatory work environment.” As an example, she alleged that prior to November 2003, her performance reviews were all favorable and she received annual pay increases but after the “attempt to terminate” her employment, she received “much less favorable” evaluations and no pay raises. She further alleged that she was told the reason for her termination was problems with the switch to Meditech even though she had a limited role in the conversion to that system. She alleged that staffing shortages made it difficult for her to schedule sufficient training and testing sessions for her employees.

¶ 11 In a deposition, the plaintiff acknowledged that her employment with the defendant was at-will. Asked if she was aware of any complaints regarding her management style prior to November 2003, she replied that Maroney told her, “Slow down, you know, you're moving too fast, too many changes.” She further testified that she was not aware of any other specific complaints about her management style. She acknowledged, however, that Dr. Padmalatha provided a February 2003 performance evaluation of the plaintiff in which she noted that the plaintiff was too quick to make changes and did not discipline employees equally. The plaintiff further acknowledged that Dr. Padmalatha raised similar concerns in 2005.

¶ 12 The plaintiff was asked if she took any action with regard to the quality control issues at the Herrin Hospital lab after January 2004. She stated that she may have spoken to Christie Connelly, the defendant's compliance officer, a few times, but was otherwise not involved with the Herrin lab after November 2003.

¶ 13 The plaintiff was then asked to explain her belief that her termination was related to raising her concerns regarding the quality control issues at Herrin Hospital. She replied, “The circumstantial evidence of the escalating reports, the perfect evaluations prior, the poor evaluations later, the retaliatory treatment that I endured for the following two years.” As examples of this retaliatory treatment, the plaintiff pointed to the freeze on her salary and a memorandum questioning her veracity, which she alleged was sent to multiple recipients.

¶ 14 The plaintiff testified that she believed that the only reason Maroney did not fire her after she declined the severance agreement in November 2003 was her report to the CLIA compliance hotline. She explained: “I can tell you—it's my assumption that that was absolutely not his decision to let me continue to work. He was told by higher-ups in the organization that * * * ‘This is too much of a hot potato. You do not touch it now.’ ” She admitted, however, that she had no evidence to support this assumption.

¶ 15 The defendant put forth evidence of specific actions on the part of the plaintiff that contributed to the problems at the Memorial Hospital lab. Specifically, the plaintiff and members of her staff attended a training session that was scheduled to take place over a period of 4 ½ days, but the plaintiff left after only 2 days and took the other staff members with her. The plaintiff admitted that this occurred, but stated that she attended the portions of the training session that were relevant for her. In addition, the plaintiff appointed Ryan Jones, a unit supervisor in the Memorial Hospital lab, to be the “point person” in charge of the conversion project for the lab. When Jones left to...