Patten-Gentry v. Oakwood Healthcare Inc., 12-CV-15564

• Decision Date: 31 March 2015
• Docket Number: No. 12-CV-15564,12-CV-15564
• Parties: EVE PATTEN-GENTRY, a/k/a EVE PATTEN, Plaintiff, v. OAKWOOD HEALTHCARE INC., and SUSAN YOUNGS, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

EVE PATTEN-GENTRY, a/k/a EVE PATTEN, Plaintiff, v. OAKWOOD HEALTHCARE INC.,and SUSAN YOUNGS, Defendants.

No. 12-CV-15564

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION

March 31, 2015

Hon. Gerald E. Rosen

OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Eve Patten-Gentry was, until 2011, employed as an office assistant in one of Defendant Oakwood Healthcare, Inc.'s patient care facilities, operating under the supervision of Defendant Dr. Susan Youngs. Plaintiff, who has been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, was terminated from her position in 2011, allegedly for unsatisfactory work performance. Plaintiff brought this action on December 19, 2012, alleging that Defendants violated her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") and the Family Medical Leave Act ("FMLA") by terminating her based on herdisability, failing to accommodate for her disability, interfering with her attempts to avail herself of her FMLA rights, and retaliating against her for exercising her FMLA rights.

Currently before the Court is Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt. # 15). Having reviewed and considered the parties' briefs and supporting documents and the entire record of this matter, the Court has determined that the pertinent allegations and legal arguments are sufficiently addressed in these materials and that oral argument would not assist in the resolution of this motion. Accordingly, the Court will decide the motion "on the briefs." See L.R. 7.1(f)(2). This Opinion and Order sets forth the Court's ruling.

II. PERTINENT FACTS

Plaintiff Eve Patten-Gentry is a former employee of Defendant Oakwood Healthcare, Inc. ("Oakwood"), a hospital system located in Wayne County, Michigan. Dep. of Eve Patten-Gentry, Dkt. # 15-2, at 27-28. Defendant Dr. Susan Youngs, a medical doctor and Director for the Center for Exceptional Families at Oakwood, was in part responsible for the supervision of Plaintiff during her employment there. Dep. of Susan Youngs, Dkt. # 15-3, at 9-10.

Plaintiff was hired by Oakwood as a "Lead Business Office Assistant" in September 1998. Dep. of Eve Patten-Gentry, at 21, 25-26. From 2000 until hertermination in 2011, Plaintiff served as a Lead Business Office Assistant in the Center for Exceptional Families (the "Center"), an outpatient treatment facility for children with learning disorders, autism, and other disabilities. Id. at 25-28. Plaintiff's job responsibilities at the Center broadly consisted of administrative and clerical tasks involved in the day-to-day operations of the Center, including scheduling of patient appointments, registration of patients, collecting and inputting demographic information related to patients, phone communications with patients and their families, preparing staffing schedules, handling cash collections and billing, some general maintenance and cleaning tasks, and handling other clerical and administrative duties. Id. at 39-40; see also Lead Business Office Assistant Job Summary, Dkt. # 15-4. Plaintiff's official job description included several minimum qualifications (such as a high school diploma and typing abilities) as well as several "mental requirements," including the ability "to constantly be able to concentrate on details with moderate amounts of interruptions"; "to attend to task/functions constantly for periods up to 60 minutes in length and frequently attend to task/functions constantly for periods exceeding 60 minutes in length such as complicated reports"; and "to constantly remember task/assignments given to self and others over both short and long periods of time." Lead Business Office Assistant Job Summary. As Plaintiff described her job, it required her to have strong communication skills and be able to multitask,prioritize goals, be self-motivated, concentrate, and handle stressful situations. Dep. of Eve Patten-Gentry, at 40-43. Plaintiff reported to several individuals during her time at the Center, including Dr. Youngs; Trish O'Hare, the Office Manager at the Center; and Tammy Morris, Ms. O'Hare's successor as Office Manager. Id. at 26-28.

For most of her life, and for the entire duration of her employment with Oakwood, Plaintiff has suffered from Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Dep. of Eve Patten-Gentry, at 31-32.¹ As Plaintiff describes her disability, it is manifested through difficulty in sleeping, uncontrollable crying, getting "stressed very easily," and an inability to "take care of [herself]," among other things. Id. at 33. In her deposition, Defendants' counsel questioned Plaintiff regarding the extent to which her disability limited her ability to perform certain tasks that were part of her job. Defendants' counsel asked Plaintiff whether her disability affected her ability to

• "schedul[e] . . . patient appointments." Id. at 44.

• "handle . . . registration duties." Id.

• "handle . . . billing function duties." Id.

• "handle . . . cash collections." Id.

• "handle phone communications." Id. at 44-45.

• complete "office maintenance duties." Id. at 45.

In response to each of these questions, Plaintiff answered that her disability did not affect her ability to complete each task. Id. at 44-45. Defendants' counsel also questioned Plaintiff regarding the extent to which her disability limited the skills that were important in order for Plaintiff to do her job. Defendants' counsel asked plaintiff whether her disability affected her

• "communication skills." Id. at 45.

• "ability to multitask." Id. at 46.

• "ability to prioritize." Id.

• "ability to be self-motivated." Id. at 47.

• "ability to handle stressful situations." Id.

• "leadership skills." Id. at 48.

• "ability to promote efficient operations processes and performance-improvement processes." Id. at 48-49.

• "ability to concentrate on details with moderate amounts of interruption." Id. at 49.

• "attention span and ability to attend to tasks or functions for periods up to 60 minutes." Id. at 50.

• "ability to conceptualize." Id. at 50-51.

• "ability to remember tasks and assignments." Id. at 51.

Plaintiff responded that her disability sometimes affected each of these skills. See id. at 45-51.

The parties dispute the extent to which Plaintiff asked Defendants to make accommodations to allow Plaintiff to do her job despite any difficulties raised by her disability, and they also dispute the extent to which Defendants provided such accommodations. In her deposition, Plaintiff stated that she never asked Defendants to provide any specific accommodations to help her with any of theskills that were sometimes affected by her disability as described above, id. at 45-51, with the exception of her ability to remember tasks and assignments, for which she "made [her] own accommodations" by writing Post-it notes. Id. at 51.² She further noted that she was not aware of any accommodations that Defendants could have provided to alleviate each of these problems. Id. at 46-50. Plaintiff does, however, broadly state in an unsworn declaration made pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746 that she "consistently asked for help and it was refused." Unsworn Decl. of Pl., Dkt. # 17-4, ¶ 6. Further, Plaintiff asserts that she "requested the assistance of a part-time medical records clerk," and the request was denied. Id. ¶ 9.³

Defendants note that "in response to [Plaintiff's] complaints that she felt her job required more than one person to do it . . . [t]here were many efforts to recruit the help of volunteers to off-load some of the work," and "Oakwood [brought] in a consultant to do a job assessment of the work," and that consultant came to the conclusion "[t]hat the position was doable with one full-time equivalent business office assistant." Dep. of Tammy Morris, Dkt. # 15-5, at 62-63. Plaintiff admits that a consultant was brought in and volunteers were sometimes used to help her, but she asserts that the consultant was only brought in "to uphold the status quo" and that the volunteers "made so many mistakes with the filing" that they were "counterproductive" and "Dr. Youngs stopped having [them] assist with filing." Unsworn Decl. of Pl., ¶¶ 8, 13.

The parties agree, however, that Defendants made some minor accommodations for Plaintiff related to her disability, including making a calendar for Plaintiff that itemized her job duties, Dep. of Eve Patten-Gentry, at 52-53, making lists for Plaintiff to help her keep track of her tasks, id. at 53-54, holding meetings and summarizing those meetings in writing as a reminder to Plaintiff, id. at 52-57; see also Meeting Summaries, Dkt. # 15-6, and referring her to an "Employee Assistance Program" and to Human Resources to discuss ways that Plaintiff could deal with her depression, id. at 57-58.

During the course of her employment, Plaintiff was disciplined several times for work-related problems. First, in October 2008, Plaintiff received a "verbal counseling" for an incident that occurred on September 9, 2008. The events were documented in a Corrective Action Form written by Trish O'Hare and signed by O'Hare and Plaintiff:

Dr. Youngs called Eve Patten, Marcy Sally, Mireya Martinez, and [Trish O'Hare] into her office mid-morning and expressed a feeling of "disconnect" with the patient flow. A patient had left after waiting longer than usual and a new patient was not put into the room in a timely manner. Dr. Youngs stated that we needed to communicate better and that Eve needed to tell someone a patient was here other than Dr. Youngs. Eve stated she was very busy up front and didn't realize the other staff did not know. Marcy and myself stated we were distracted with other business and did not realize someone was waiting. Upon Dr. Youngs and Marcy leaving the room Eve stated, "the chart in the door was not good enough?" (Referring to the process that is in place to alert staff of the next patient). I asked her why she did not bring that up. She st

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