McCullough v. Wellspan York Hosp.
| Decision Date | 05 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. 1:20-CV-979 |
| Parties | CAROLINE MCCULLOUGH, Plaintiff, v. WELLSPAN YORK HOSPITAL, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania |
(Judge Conner)
(Magistrate Judge Carlson)
This employment discrimination case comes before us for consideration of a motion to dismiss Count VII of the plaintiff's complaint, which alleges the state law tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. (Doc. 5). With respect to this count of McCullough's complaint, the well-pleaded facts that guide our consideration of this motion to dismiss are as follows:
The plaintiff, Caroline McCullough, was employed by Wellspan York Hospital from January 1998 until she was terminated on June 17, 2019. (Doc. 1, ¶¶ 11, 43). At the time of her termination, McCullough worked as a Case Manager Registered Nurse and reported to the defendant, Tanya Haugh. (Id., ¶ 13).
According to McCullough, her daughter suffers from an array of physical and emotional impairments, conditions which create great stress for McCullough and have required McCullough to call off from work on a number of occasions with little or no notice to address medical emergencies. (Id., ¶ 14). The defendants' response to these absences lies at the heart of McCullough's complaint.
According to McCullough, she began experiencing the need for unscheduled absences from work to address her daughter's medical conditions in the fall of 2018. (Id., ¶ 15). After she had called off from work unexpectedly on three occasions in the span of two months, McCullough received a warning from Haugh regarding her absenteeism in November of 2018. (Id., ¶¶ 14-26). At that time, McCullough alleges that she brought her daughter's medical condition to Haugh's attention and received some information regarding FMLA resources offered to employees by Wellspan. (Id.) McCullough contends, however, that those resources were not made readily available to her, and that the defendants failed to engage in any meaningful interactive process to address her family medical needs, despite being required to do so. (Id.)
According to McCullough, these failures to communicate and engage in a meaningful exchange to address her needs led to a second disciplinary citation for absenteeism and tardiness by Wellspan on January 2, 2019. (Id., ¶ 31). In the wake of this second disciplinary citation, McCullough avers that she sought further assistance but continued to receive incomplete and inconsistent guidance, advice, and treatment by Wellspan officials, who failed to engage in a meaningfulinteraction process in her case and treated her leave requests in a fashion different from other similarly-situated employees. (Id., ¶¶ 31-39).
On June 5, 2019, McCullough states that she was presented with another sudden medical crisis relating to her daughter, who was threatening self-harm. McCullough notified her supervisor, Haugh, that she would miss work due to this emergency. Notwithstanding this notice, McCullough later learned that her June 5 absence was considered another unexcused absence from work. (Id., ¶ 40). Wellspan then refused to make an accommodations for this work absence, such as treating the absence as excused, and rather cited what it alleged was a failure by McCullough to seek a correction of the absence to an excused absence within 72 hours. (Id., ¶ 42). Wellspan and Haugh declined to make this change in McCullough's attendance records even though it is alleged that Haugh had the authority to treat the June 5 absence as an excused absence and McCullough had allegedly attempted to request an excused absence on this occasion. (Id., ¶ 42). Instead, on June 17, 2019, Haugh met with McCullough, provided her a third notice for absenteeism, and terminated her employment. (Id., ¶ 43).
Based upon this factual recital, McCullough has filed a seven-count civil complaint against Wellspan and Haugh. (Doc. 1). The first six counts of the complaint allege various federal claims involving alleged violations of the Family Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq., and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.Count VII of the complaint then brings a state tort law claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. (Id.) The factual basis of this state tort claim is grounded upon the course of conduct alleged in the complaint concerning the failure of the defendants to provide accommodations for McCullough's medical leave requests, and their decision to terminate McCullough for excessive absenteeism. (Id.)
Wellspan has now moved to dismiss Count VII, alleging that McCullough's complaint fails as a matter of law to state a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, and further asserting that any such state common law tort claim is pre-empted by Pennsylvania' worker's compensation statute. (Doc. 5). This motion is fully briefed and is, therefore, ripe for resolution.
For the reasons set forth below, it is recommended that the motion to dismiss be granted.
A motion to dismiss tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint. It is proper for the court to dismiss a complaint in accordance with Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure only if the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). With respect to this benchmark standard for the legal sufficiency of a complaint, the United States Court of Appeals for the ThirdCircuit has aptly noted the evolving standards governing pleading practice in federal court, stating that:
Standards of pleading have been in the forefront of jurisprudence in recent years. Beginning with the Supreme Court's opinion in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), continuing with our opinion in Phillips [v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 230 (3d Cir. 2008)], and culminating recently with the Supreme Court's decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, -U.S.-, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009), pleading standards have seemingly shifted from simple notice pleading to a more heightened form of pleading, requiring a plaintiff to plead more than the possibility of relief to survive a motion to dismiss.
Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 209-10 (3d Cir. 2009).
In considering whether a complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, the court must accept as true all allegations in the complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom are to be construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Jordan v. Fox, Rothschild, O'Brien & Frankel, Inc., 20 F.3d 1250, 1261 (3d Cir. 1994). However, a court "need not credit a complaint's bald assertions or legal conclusions when deciding a motion to dismiss." Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997). Additionally, a court need not "assume that a . . . plaintiff can prove facts that the . . . plaintiff has not alleged." Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal. v. California State Council of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 526 (1983). As the Supreme Court held in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), in order to state a valid cause of action, a plaintiff must provide some factual grounds for relief which "requires more thanlabels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of actions will not do." Id., at 555. "Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Id.
In keeping with the principles of Twombly, the Supreme Court has underscored that a trial court must assess whether a complaint states facts upon which relief can be granted when ruling on a motion to dismiss. In Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), the Supreme Court held that, when considering a motion to dismiss, a court should "begin by identifying pleadings that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth." Id., at 679. According to the Supreme Court, "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Id., at 678. Rather, in conducting a review of the adequacy of a complaint, the Supreme Court has advised trial courts that they must:
[B]egin by identifying pleadings that because they are no more than conclusions are not entitled to the assumption of truth. While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations. When there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.
Thus, following Twombly and Iqbal, a well-pleaded complaint must contain more than mere legal labels and conclusions; it must recite factual allegationssufficient to raise the plaintiff's claimed right to relief beyond the level of mere speculation. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has stated:
[A]fter Iqbal, when presented with a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, district courts should conduct a two-part analysis. First, the factual and legal elements of a claim should be separated. The District Court must accept all of the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but may disregard any legal conclusions. Second, a District Court must then determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a "plausible claim for relief." In other words, a complaint must do more than allege the plaintiff's entitlement to relief. A complaint has to "show" such an entitlement with its facts.
As the Court of Appeals has observed:
The Supreme Court in Twombly set forth the "plausibility" standard for overcoming a motion to dismiss and refined this approach in Iqbal. The plausibility standard requires the complaint to allege "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Twombly, 550 U.S. at...
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