Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico

• Citation: 637 F. Supp. 789
• Decision Date: 12 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. Civ. 83-1516CC.,Civ. 83-1516CC.
• Court: United States District Courts. 1st Circuit. District of Puerto Rico
• Parties: Annabelle LIPSETT, Plaintiff, v. UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO; Norman Maldonado, individually and as Chancellor of the Medical Science Campus of the University of Puerto Rico; Pedro Juan Santiago-Borrero, individually and in his capacity as Dean of the School of Medicine of the University of Puerto Rico; Jose R. Gonzalez-Inclan, individually and in his capacity as Acting Director of the Department of Surgery and as Acting Director of the Surgery Residency Training Program; Gumersindo Blanco, individually and in his capacity as Director of the Department of Surgery and Chairman of the University of Puerto Rico and Affiliated Hospitals Residency Training Program; Ernesto Rive-Mora, individually and in his capacity as Director of the Training Program of the San Juan Veterans Administration Hospital Charles C. Freeman, Center Director of the San Juan Veteran's Administration; James G. Martin, in his capacity as Director of the United States Veterans Administration, Defendants.

637 F. Supp. 789

Annabelle LIPSETT, Plaintiff, v. UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO; Norman Maldonado, individually and as Chancellor of the Medical Science Campus of the University of Puerto Rico; Pedro Juan Santiago-Borrero, individually and in his capacity as Dean of the School of Medicine of the University of Puerto Rico; Jose R. Gonzalez-Inclan, individually and in his capacity as Acting Director of the Department of Surgery and as Acting Director of the Surgery Residency Training Program; Gumersindo Blanco, individually and in his capacity as Director of the Department of Surgery and Chairman of the University of Puerto Rico and Affiliated Hospitals Residency Training Program; Ernesto Rive-Mora, individually and in his capacity as Director of the Training Program of the San Juan Veterans Administration Hospital Charles C. Freeman, Center Director of the San Juan Veteran's Administration; James G. Martin, in his capacity as Director of the United States Veterans Administration, Defendants.

No. Civ. 83-1516CC.

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

June 12, 1986.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Judith Berkan, Santurce, P.R., Esther Vicente, Rio Piedras, P.R., for plaintiff.

Edgardo Colón-Arrarás, Office of the Attorney General, San Juan, P.R., James D. Noel, III, Ledesma, Palou & Miranda, Francisco A. Besosa, Asst. U.S. Atty., Daniel F. López-Romo, U.S. Atty., Hato Rey, P.R., for defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

CEREZO, District Judge.

This is an action for damages as well as declaratory and injunctive relief brought pursuant to the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Constitution of the United States, the civil rights legislation, the Constitution of Puerto Rico and several Puerto Rico laws.¹ Plaintiff seeks a declaration of illegality of certain allegedly sexually discriminatory practices used against her while she attended the University of Puerto Rico's School of Medicine Surgery Residency Program and reinstatement to that program so that she may complete it free from such practices. Upon ruling on motions to dismiss we stated earlier that plaintiff's action could not be dismissed on the pleadings, but that many of the claims as to some of the defendants would probably not survive a motion for summary judgment in view of their conclusory nature. See Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, 576 F.Supp. 1217, 1223 (D.P.R.1983). We also warned plaintiff that even those pleadings which contained some factual data failed to link each of the numerous defendants to a situation of potential liability. Plaintiff's response was to leave most allegations intact and add at the end that the defendants were jointly liable because they "at all times and regarding all matters complained of herein had knowledge or should have had knowledge of the events" and because they "participated in the proceedings leading to plaintiff's dismissal." The amended-amended complaint of March 30, 1984 paragraphs 59(a) and 59(b).² However, professors and officials of the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus and School of Medicine, sued in their individual capacity (UPR officials),³ took up the Court's lead on the weakness of some of the pleadings and requested partial dismissal in extensive, well-documented motions for summary judgment which plaintiff has opposed in equally extensive and documented writings and replies.⁴ The officials from the Veterans Administration, the original defendants whom the court was referring to when suggesting that certain pleadings would not withstand a motion for summary judgment, have not filed any dispositive pretrial motions.⁵

After a painstaking examination of the documents, depositions and motions which comprise this four volume file and which reveals a disarrayed group of events covering a three year period and involving a multitude of individuals and situations, we have finally been able to flesh out the particulars of plaintiff's much clamored constitutional claim. The claim is divided into two parts: the first is based on sex discriminatory practices within the UPR Surgery Residency Program and the other deals with an alleged lack of due process in her evaluation. Upon examining the particular factual basis on which these claims rest, we find that there is no controversy requiring jury adjudication, at least, not as to the defendant U.P.R. officials. Although the record contains instances of what would appear to be, under the favorable inferences standard, adverse conduct and unequal treatment prompted by sexually discriminatory motives, there is a noticeable absence of the necessary factual basis to link these instances and attitudes to the possible scope of liability of U.P.R. officials.

The U.P.R. officials sued in their official and individual capacity are Dr. Norman Maldonado, Chancellor of the Medical Science Campus of the University of Puerto Rico; Dr. Pedro Juan Santiago-Borrero, Dean of the Medical Science Campus of the University of Puerto Rico; Dr. José R. González-Inclán, Acting Director of the Department of Surgery and Acting Director of the University of Puerto Rico and Affiliated Hospitals Surgery Residency Training Program and Dr. Gumersindo Blanco, Director of the Department of Surgery and Chairman of the University of Puerto Rico and Affiliated Hospitals Residency Training Program. The Surgery Residency Program is a five year learning-working internship where qualified doctors are hired on a yearly basis, in conjunction with the Puerto Rico Department of Health, to perform supervised surgery. During their residency, the doctors are evaluated every three months by their professors and perform under the guidance and direct supervision of their immediate superiors, those residents who have reached a higher position in the program's five level hierarchy. The program's residency positions are pyramidal, that is, at the highest level of proficiency, usually the fifth year of residency,⁶ there are less openings than at the lowest level. There is hard competition for these progressively limited spaces.

Plaintiff entered the Program as a first year intern in July 1980, after having completed her medical studies at the Caribbean School of Medicine in Cayey, a private college. She was promoted to her second year of surgery residency in the summer of 1981. During this second year, in November 11, 1981, she had an incident with two senior residents which was brought to the faculty's attention. As a result of that incident, she was placed on probation during the first part of 1982 and was transferred to the Veteran's Hospital, an affiliated hospital of the Program. At the end of this period, the faculty received a complaint from two senior residents who had worked with her at the Veteran's Hospital rotation. The faculty, which two weeks before receiving the formal complaint had decided to promote her to the third year level, considered this complaint and determined that plaintiff would be allowed to complete her third year of residency at the Program but that she would not be promoted to the fourth year. She was so informed and advised of her rights to seek reconsideration within the procedural scheme of the Program. On October 22, 1982, already into her third year, plaintiff requested a reconsideration hearing before the faculty. After holding the hearing in December 1982, the faculty voted against reconsidering their prior decision and she was notified. She continued to pursue the Program's administrative remedies, and, on January 24, 1983, requested that a special appeals committee review her case. During April of that year, the special appeals committee was formed and reviewed her case. This committee decided to affirm the surgery faculty's decision and so notified her on May 16, 1983. On June 30, 1983 she filed the instant complaint.

Plaintiff complains in general terms of a pervasive sexist attitude among the mostly male residents of the program, the faculty and society. She argues that the prevalent view is that women do not have what it takes to be surgeons, meaning certain traits, such as: "aggressiveness, dominance, endurance, perseverance, cynicism, compulsiveness, memory for facts and details, manual ability and interest in handling tools and machines," which society has generally attributed to males. Translating this into specifies which the court can handle, plaintiff claims that, on several undated occasions at the beginning of her internship, some male senior residents expressed to her and to other female surgery residents their sexist attitudes by stating their belief that surgery was no place for a woman. She also points to the male residents' constant reference to sex by describing their sexual adventures, making sexual jokes, giving nicknames to both male and female residents, some of which had sexual connotations, and placing pin-ups of nude women on the walls of the male residents rest facilities in one of the affiliated hospitals where sometimes all residents had to meet or go to pick up their food. In one of the depositions on record, Dr. Karin Susan Bensen, a female resident who attended the Program during the academic year 1982-83 and who was not promoted to her second year of residency, mentioned an incident where she and plaintiff decided to transfer a young and pretty patient from the intensive care unit because the patient was lying naked on a bed at that unit and was being visited four or five times a day by various male residents, presumably to look at her body. Plaintiff also makes general reference to the male residents' efforts to date female residents, staff members and even patients and how those female residents who rejected their advances were unfairly treated. There is also reference to certain informal meetings at a pizzeria where some of the male residents would get together and discuss their cases. According to plaintiff's theory, this affected her opportunities for advancement within the Program because these social...