Ford v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Connecticut, Inc.

• Decision Date: 31 July 1990
• Docket Number: No. 13667,13667
• Citation: 216 Conn. 40,578 A.2d 1054
• Parties: , 117 Lab.Cas. P 56,473, 5 IER Cases 942 Roberta FORD v. BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD OF CONNECTICUT, INC.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 1054

578 A.2d 1054

216 Conn. 40, 117 Lab.Cas. P 56,473,

5 IER Cases 942

Roberta FORD v. BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD OF CONNECTICUT, INC.

No. 13667.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 5, 1990.

Decided July 31, 1990.

Charles L. Howard, with whom were Linda L. Yoder and, on brief, Paul W. Orth, Hartford, for appellant-appellee (defendant).

Jonathan L. Gould, with whom were Susan Price-Livingston and, on brief, Anne Goldstein, Hartford, for appellee-appellant (plaintiff).

Before PETERS, C.J., and SHEA, CALLAHAN, GLASS and HULL, JJ.

HULL, Associate Justice.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the trial court properly instructed the jury concerning the allocation of burdens of proof in an action brought by an employee pursuant to General Statutes § 31-290a, ¹ alleging wrongful termination of employment. The plaintiff, Roberta Ford, instituted this action pursuant to § 31-290a, claiming that the defendant, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Connecticut, Inc., had terminated her employment because she had filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits. The case was tried before a jury that found in favor of the plaintiff and awarded damages as follows: $95,270 for payment of back wages; $3703 for loss of employee benefits; $50,000 for other damages; $49,657.66 for attorney's fees; and $962.50 for other costs. The trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict and additionally ordered that the plaintiff be reinstated to her previous employment position. From this judgment the defendant appealed and the plaintiff cross appealed to the Appellate Court; we subsequently transferred this case to ourselves pursuant to Practice Book § 4023. We reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for a new trial.

Evidence was presented at trial from which the jury could reasonably have found the following facts. In 1971, the defendant hired the plaintiff, a 1946 nursing school graduate, as a manager in its medical review department. The plaintiff subsequently held several other positions in this department, and in January, 1983, became a senior medical records examiner. In these capacities, the plaintiff received satisfactory performance appraisals. Following an appraisal in December, 1984, the plaintiff was recommended by her supervisor, Toni Jackson Starrs, for a promotion to the higher salaried position of utilization review specialist. This new position entailed more complex duties than did the position of records examiner. In particular, the utilization review specialist was responsible for on-site audits of home health agencies and the compilation of periodic statistical reports for the Health Care Financing Administration, the federal agency that oversees the medicare program. Although the plaintiff had been suffering for several months from anxiety due to the pressure of her job as senior medical records examiner, she decided to accept the promotion.

Upon taking the position of utilization review specialist, the plaintiff was required to perform certain of the functions of her former position as well as the duties of the new position. The plaintiff received negligible formal training regarding her new responsibilities and soon began having difficulty performing all of the functions of her job. Because of this difficulty, the plaintiff sought guidance and assistance from Starrs, but received little instruction.

On January 30, 1985, the plaintiff was having difficulty completing an audit that was due the following day. She was eventually reduced to tears and left work. The following day she consulted Gerald Flamm, a psychiatrist, who diagnosed her as suffering from depression and anxiety. Flamm sent a letter to the defendant in which he stated that due to the plaintiff's condition, she was unable to work. Flamm did not clear the plaintiff to return to work until February 25, 1985. On February 26, 1985, after returning to work, the plaintiff filed a notice of claim for workers' compensation benefits, claiming that her disability had been caused by work-related stress.

During the plaintiff's absence from work, Starrs reassigned the plaintiff's work to other members of the department who discovered numerous errors in the reports on which the plaintiff had been working. When the plaintiff returned to work, however, little was said about either her absence or the problems with her work. Upon her return to work, the plaintiff assumed a reduced workload that resulted in a reduction of her anxiety and depression. Nevertheless, errors in her work continued to occur.

On May 8, 1985, Starrs informed the plaintiff that she had received a call from the defendant's insurance carrier inquiring about the plaintiff's stress-related medical problems. The plaintiff explained that the call concerned her workers' compensation claim. Starrs thereafter called Norma Ginter, an employee then in charge of administering the defendant's disciplinary procedures, to discuss the plaintiff's situation. Ginter's notes and testimony regarding that conversation indicated that Starrs initiated discussion about the plaintiff's workers' compensation claim and Starrs' concern about the insurance carrier's investigation of her department. Starrs also discussed with Ginter the problems with the plaintiff's job performance. On May 9, 1985, Starrs and Ginter again discussed the plaintiff, a conversation that resulted in their agreement to offer the plaintiff an early retirement option. Starrs and Ginter agreed that, if the plaintiff refused this option, they would then initiate formal disciplinary procedures.

Starrs met with the plaintiff on May 10, 1985, a meeting that commenced with Starrs' mention of the fact that the plaintiff had filed a workers' compensation claim. Starrs then informed the plaintiff that she had detected problems with the plaintiff's job performance, particularly her inability to perform the audits and compile the statistical records. The discussion thereafter turned to options available to the plaintiff such as early retirement, part-time work, and transfer to another department. The meeting then ended as it had begun with Starrs' mention of the plaintiff's pending workers' compensation claim.

Starrs' treatment of the plaintiff at this meeting resulted in the recurrence of the plaintiff's symptoms of anxiety. The plaintiff, nonetheless, decided against early retirement. When the plaintiff informed Starrs of her decision, Starrs instituted the first step in the defendant's formal discipline process by placing the plaintiff on a forty-five day warning, commencing June 13, 1985. Starrs told the plaintiff that if her work did not improve during that time further discipline would result. The plaintiff requested that Starrs show her the errors that she had made in her work, a request that Starrs refused.

The plaintiff thereafter returned to Flamm for further treatment for her stress. Flamm found that the plaintiff's renewed stress took the form more of anxiety than of depression for which he prescribed medication and recommended further consultative therapy. He felt that the increased anxiety from which the plaintiff suffered during the period May to August, 1985, was caused by the defendant's disciplinary action.

During mid-June, 1985, the plaintiff consulted with an attorney concerning the events that had transpired at work. On June 20, 1985, the attorney sent a letter to the defendant's director of human resources, Nicholas Reuter, claiming that the defendant's recent discipline of the plaintiff was in retaliation for the plaintiff's workers' compensation claim. Reuter referred the letter to Joan Hartley, the manager of communications and equal employment within the department. Hartley thereafter became involved in the plaintiff's disciplinary process in an effort to ensure that the discipline imposed was based upon errors made during the relevant warning period.

On July 28, 1985, the plaintiff wrote a rebuttal to Starrs' June 13 warning that ultimately had been reduced to writing in early July. Upon Starrs' receipt of the rebuttal, she slammed her office door in the plaintiff's presence, commenting that the plaintiff had now made things impossible. Starrs met again with the plaintiff on July 31, 1985, to discuss the plaintiff's work product. Starrs identified errors in the plaintiff's work, some of which had been made by the plaintiff prior to the first verbal warning issued in June. At this meeting, Starrs issued the plaintiff a second warning. Upon issuing this warning, Starrs indicated that if the plaintiff did not improve her performance within thirty days, her employment would be terminated.

Other members of the department in which the plaintiff was working during the summer of 1985 were also suffering from job-related stress that resulted in mistakes in their work product. The plaintiff, however, was the only member of the department that had filed a workers' compensation claim; the plaintiff was also the only member against whom Starrs had initiated formal disciplinary procedures.

The plaintiff's workload was reduced during the month of August. An employee to whom Starrs had delegated the job of checking the plaintiff's work indicated that the plaintiff's performance was improving. During this time, the plaintiff continued to receive treatment from Flamm for her anxiety. On the basis of his contact with the plaintiff, Flamm determined that it was not healthy for the plaintiff to remain in Starrs' department. As a result, on August 26, 1985, Flamm requested in a letter to the defendant that the plaintiff be transferred to a different department.

Flamm's letter was reviewed by Hartley, Starrs and Starrs' direct supervisor, James Buccheri. Starrs indicated to the others that the plaintiff's performance had not improved, although she admitted that she was not sure that the work she had reviewed in August had actually been completed during that month. Starrs then...