Hamilton v. Baystate Medical Educ.

• Decision Date: 20 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-2211,94-2211
• Parties: NOTICE: First Circuit Local Rule 36.2(b)6 states unpublished opinions may be cited only in related cases. William HAMILTON and Charlene Hamilton, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. BAYSTATE MEDICAL EDUCATION, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 306

66 F.3d 306

NOTICE: First Circuit Local Rule 36.2(b)6 states unpublished opinions may be cited only in related cases.

William HAMILTON and Charlene Hamilton, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. BAYSTATE MEDICAL EDUCATION, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 94-2211.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Sept. 20, 1995.

Wendy Sibbison for appellants.

Toby G. Hartt, with whom Jay M. Presser and Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C. were on brief for appellees.

Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Campbell, Senior Circuit Judgei and Cyr, Circuit Judge.

CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge.

This appeal arises from the termination of employment of Dr. William Hamilton, a pathologist at Baystate Medical Center ("Baystate") in Springfield, Massachusetts. Dr. Hamilton brought a diversity action in the district court against Baystate, Baystate Medical Education and Research Foundation ("BMERF"), and Baystate Health Systems ("BHS"), alleging breach of contract, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. ¹ In addition, Dr. Hamilton's wife, Charlene Hamilton, sued for loss of consortium. The district court granted Defendants' motion for summary judgment on all counts. Hamilton v. Baystate Medical Educ. & Research Found., 866 F.Supp. 51 (D.Mass.1994). We affirm.

I.

Dr. Hamilton worked as a pathologist at Baystate from 1970 to 1989. In 1986, BHS created BMERF, a corporation which employs doctors to work at Baystate. ² At that time, Dr. Hamilton, along with all full-time pathologists at Baystate, entered into a series of annual BMERF employment contracts.

In 1986, Dr. Hamilton's performance as a pathologist began to deteriorate. Over the next two and a half years, his performance became progressively worse, and he made a number of errors in diagnoses and the labeling of specimens. In early 1989, Dr. John Sullivan, Chairperson of the Baystate Pathology Department, learned that Dr. Hamilton had made an egregious error in November of 1988. Dr. Hamilton had incorrectly diagnosed breast cancer, resulting in a patient receiving unnecessary surgery, a potentially carcinogenic dose of radiation therapy, and a toxic course of chemotherapy. On January 19, 1989, Dr. Sullivan met with Dr. Hamilton and suggested that Dr. Hamilton resign. At that meeting, it was agreed that Dr. Hamilton would take some vacation time to determine whether he was ill. Dr. Hamilton soon learned that he had been suffering from Graves Disease for roughly the previous three years. Graves Disease is a severe disease of the thyroid gland which, if untreated, results in the impairment of a person's memory and ability to concentrate. Dr. Hamilton's treating physician, Dr. Haag, Chief of the Endocrine/Metabolic Division at Baystate, characterized Dr. Hamilton's condition as severe. He suggested that it was probably responsible for Dr. Hamilton's poor performance. Dr. Hamilton took approximately five months of sick leave and paid vacation.

By the summer of 1989, Dr. Hamilton's thyroid gland was functioning normally, but he continued to experience episodes of cardiac arrhythmias. In August, Dr. Hamilton wrote to Dr. Sullivan stating that although he was not in a position to make long-term decisions and he did not think he was completely cured, he wanted to return to work on a part-time basis in September. In early September, Dr. Hamilton twice reiterated his desire to return to Baystate, but each time his request was denied.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Hamilton retained an attorney to negotiate a severance agreement with Defendants. In January 1990, a medical malpractice tribunal found Dr. Hamilton negligent in the case of the misdiagnosed breast cancer, and Dr. Sullivan filled out a terminal evaluation form that was back dated to September 1, 1989. In February 1990, settlement negotiations between Dr. Hamilton's attorney and Defendants broke down, and Dr. Hamilton was asked to retrieve his belongings from Baystate.

II. Discussion

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Goldman v. First National Bank, 985 F.2d 1113, 1116 (1st Cir.1993); Velez-Gomez v. SMA Life Assurance Co., 8 F.3d 873, 874 (1st Cir.1993). Summary judgment will be affirmed only if "no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); O'Connor v. Steeves, 994 F.2d 905, 906-907 (1st Cir.1993). A genuine issue of material fact exists "if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Oliver v. Digital Equipment Corp., 846 F.2d 103, 105 (1st Cir.1988) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986)).

In determining whether a factual dispute exists, all reasonable inferences are made in favor of the nonmoving party, in this case, the Hamiltons. See O'Connor, 994 F.2d at 907. Nevertheless, the Hamiltons must provide evidence of an issue of material fact, and may not rely "merely upon conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation." Medina-Munoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1990).

A. Breach of Contract

Dr. Hamilton had two separate relationships with Defendants: an employee-employer relationship with BMERF ³ and a professional staff appointment with Baystate. Dr. Hamilton argues that Defendants (1) violated the BMERF employment contract by discharging him without cause and (2) violated the BMERF and Baystate contracts by disregarding pre-termination procedural requirements. We address each of these contentions.

1. Substantive Breach of Contract

Dr. Hamilton alleges that he was discharged without cause in violation of his BMERF employment contract. Summary judgment was correctly allowed if the evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to Dr. Hamilton, was such that no reasonable juror could find that his termination violated either the express terms of his contract or the common law standard of "just cause." Under either standard, Defendants were justified in terminating Dr. Hamilton if they reasonably believed that he was unable to fulfill the duties of a full-time pathologist at Baystate. ⁴ Based on the record before the district court, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment.

Dr. Hamilton correctly states that, in order to satisfy the terms of his employment contract, Defendants must have had a current belief at the time of termination that Dr. Hamilton was unable to perform his duties. All the admissible evidence here points to such a belief: there is little or nothing to the contrary. Dr. Hamilton had suffered from untreated Graves Disease for approximately three years. This illness most affected his brain, causing him to make repeated, serious mistakes. Dr. Hamilton submitted no evidence directly from his treating physicians that he was fit to return to work in September of 1989. He tendered, instead, only his own hearsay statements that his treating physician said he was cured of Graves Disease, ⁵ statements which must be read in conjunction with his treating physician's deposition statement that, in his opinion, as of September 1, 1989, he did not know whether Dr. Hamilton's cognitive function had returned to normal, that he was very concerned by the slowness of his recovery, and that Dr. Hamilton "was not able to return to a full-time post, doing everything that a general pathologist had to do to perform all of his duties." Moreover, given the debilitating effects of Graves Disease, it could reasonably be surmised that Dr. Hamilton was unlikely to have kept abreast of the medical knowledge within his field during the period of his illness. We see no basis in this record for concluding anything but that Defendants' discharge of Dr. Hamilton was prompted by their reasonable belief that his condition "substantially and adversely" affected his ability to perform as a pathologist at Baystate in September of 1989.

Dr. Hamilton cautions against the granting of summary judgment when "state of mind" is a critical issue. See Stepanischen v. Merchants Despatch Transp. Corp., 722 F.2d 922, 928-29 (1st Cir.1983). However, the fact that "state of mind" or motivation is an element of proof does not necessarily preclude summary judgment in an otherwise appropriate case. Id. Accord White v. Hearst Corp., 669 F.2d 14, 17 (1st Cir.1982); Hahn v. Sargent, 523 F.2d 461, 468 (1st Cir.1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 904 (1976).

Dr. Hamilton argues that there is a triable issue as to whether Defendants were honest in their asserted belief that he was unable to perform his duties at Baystate. Under Massachusetts law, an employer's reasons for termination cannot be given in bad faith. See Klein v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 25 Mass.App.Ct. 204, 517 N.E.2d 167, 169-170 (1987). Defendants should have known, plaintiff argues, that his thyroid gland was functioning normally as of September 1989. But, as pointed out above, Dr. Hamilton presented no objective medical evidence that he was fully fit to perform his duties then and, indeed, did not even himself claim that he was cured. Dr. Hamilton urges that Defendants' failure to report him to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine as an "impaired physician," and their failure to warn other hospitals where he was working in December of 1989, shows that they did not honestly believe that he was unfit to return to work, and, therefore, that they terminated him in bad faith. We think these omissions were insufficient, by themselves, to establish bad faith. While believing that Dr. Hamilton was unfit to return to work at Baystate, Defendants may, at the same time, have not wanted to destroy his medical career by reporting him to other hospitals and to the Registration Board.

Dr. Hamilton argues that Defendants were not reasonable in believing that he was unable to perform his duties at Baystate. He points to their failure to consult his physicians in September of 1989 in...