Pearson v. Macon-Bibb County Hosp. Authority, MACON-BIBB

• Decision Date: 03 February 1992
• Docket Number: MACON-BIBB,No. 90-8966,90-8966
• Parties: 57 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1518, 58 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,313 Sheila PEARSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.COUNTY HOSPITAL AUTHORITY; Medical Center of Central Georgia and Damon H. King, Individually and in his official capacity as the Administrator of the Medical Center of Central Georgia, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1274

952 F.2d 1274

57 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1518,

58 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,313

Sheila PEARSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MACON-BIBB COUNTY HOSPITAL AUTHORITY; Medical Center of

Central Georgia and Damon H. King, Individually and in his

official capacity as the Administrator of the Medical Center

of Central Georgia, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 90-8966.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Feb. 3, 1992.

Christopher Coates, Milledgeville, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.

H. Lane Dennard, Jr., King & Spalding, Kirk D. McConnell, Margaret H. Campbell, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak, & Stewart, Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, BIRCH, Circuit Judge, and HILL ^*, Senior Circuit Judge.

BIRCH, Circuit Judge:

This appeal is from the grant of summary judgment by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, in favor of defendants in a suit brought by an employee of a publicly funded hospital who was allegedly subject to discrimination in a discharge from employment. For the reasons that follow, we find that material questions of fact remain for resolution with respect to the issue of equitable tolling of the prescribed filing period, as well as the merits of the plaintiff-appellant's claims under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17 (1988), and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1; see 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988). We REVERSE and REMAND for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

Appellant Sheila Pearson, who is a black person, was employed at the Medical Center of Central Georgia from 1976 until her discharge in January 1986. At the time of the incident precipitating her termination, appellant held the position of senior staff nurse, and performed work as a charge nurse in the operating room ("O.R."). Her duties included preparing the O.R. for surgery, coordinating the availability of staff needed for procedures, and checking the cleanliness of the O.R. area. Due to the higher level of her position, appellant was also called upon to perform in a supervisory capacity.

Appellant's termination stemmed from an event involving several nurses in which a package of contaminated surgical instruments was left untended in the O.R. area. On the afternoon of September 13, 1985, an O.R. technician assisted in a surgical procedure that yielded a bundle of contaminated instruments, then failed to remove the instruments to the O.R. sterilization area (as was her duty) in her haste to assist in another procedure. Another nurse, serving as "outside circulator" during the surgical procedure subsequently enclosed the instruments in a sheet but also failed to remove them for cleaning. A third nurse, working as charge nurse during the evening of the same day, failed to discover the instruments during her rounds of the O.R. Hence, the instruments were left in the hallway outside the O.R. and remained there until the 9:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. shift worked by the appellant. Appellant, too, despite having a duty to make rounds in the O.R., neglected to discover and remove the instruments during her shift, and they remained in their inappropriate location until discovered by a nurse working a shift on the morning of September 14.

As a result of the incident, appellant and the other three nurses, who are white persons, received oral warnings for neglect of duty from their immediate supervisor, Mary Freeman. Freeman issued this reprimand to appellant in a September 19 meeting. Not long after receiving Freeman's reprimand, appellant attended a seminar in which she criticized the failure of her superiors to adequately supervise the cleaning responsibilities of the O.R. nurses. Also shortly after her meeting with Freeman, the appellant submitted a written response to Freeman's reprimand dated October 6, in which she asserted that ultimate blame for the incident lay with the O.R. technician and urged that the assignment of O.R. duties be clarified in the future. Meanwhile, Freeman discussed the underlying incident, as well as general complaints about appellant's disruptive behavior in the workplace with an Assistant Administrator, Sylvia Bond, who agreed with Freeman that the appellant should be terminated from O.R. duties and directed Freeman to meet with the Director of Medical-Surgical Nursing, Lavonne Harn. On the basis of Freeman's criticisms of appellant, Harn and Freeman decided to require appellant to choose between resigning or transferring to another section of the hospital. Also at some point during this time frame, Bond met with Daymon King, Administrator of the Medical Center, and briefed him on the planned action against appellant. Beyond the initial oral warnings given in September, no equivalent action was taken against any of the other nurses involved in the September 13 incident.

In accordance with their determination, Freeman and Harn met with appellant on October 16 to notify her of their decision and to explain the options available to her, informing her that she could resign to seek employment at another hospital, apply for a transfer within the Medical Center, or, in the event she refused either option, be terminated. Appellant informed Freeman two days later that she wished to transfer to another hospital section. Appellant then sought a position in the hospital's Emergency Center but was told that no opening was available in that area. When offered a job in one of the Urgent Care Centers, the appellant declined the position due to time conflicts that would arise with her responsibilities at home.

Thereafter, appellant took a medical leave of absence from the Medical Center and, after her leave and benefit time was exhausted, was ultimately administratively terminated on January 21, 1986.

On April 28, 1986, 194 days after notice of termination, appellant filed a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). Therein she named as defendants the Medical Center, the Macon-Bibb County Hospital Authority (a public entity that operates the Medical Center), and King, individually and officially in his capacity as Administrator of the Medical Center (having ultimate responsibility for personnel decisions). In her complaint, Pearson alleged violations of an asserted federal proscription under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (1988) of discriminatory discharge in private employment contracts, procedural due process rights, substantive due process rights, First Amendment rights, Title VII, and the Fourteenth Amendment right of equal protection. On each of these claims the district court granted defendant-appellees' motion for summary judgment. ¹ We address each issue in turn, undertaking a plenary review of whether there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and whether the appellees are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Carlin Communication v. Southern Bell, 802 F.2d 1352, 1356 (11th Cir.1986).

II. DISCUSSION

A. The 42 U.S.C. § 1981 Claim

In granting summary judgment below, the district court addressed the merits of Pearson's claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 for discriminatory discharge. ² Our review of the district court's decision, however, need not reach the merits, as appellant's § 1981 claim fails legally under the Supreme Court's intervening ruling in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989).

In Patterson, the Court addressed the scope of § 1981 as applied to employment contracts, and held that

§ 1981 ... covers only conduct at the initial formation of the contract and conduct which impairs the right to enforce contract obligations through legal process.

491 U.S. at 179-80, 109 S.Ct. at 2374. Hence, claims for discriminatory discharge are not cognizable under § 1981. Weaver v. Casa Gallardo, Inc., 922 F.2d 1515, 1520 (11th Cir.1991). Thompkins v. Dekalb County Hosp. Auth., 916 F.2d 600, 601 (11th Cir.1990) (per curiam). The clear mandate of Patterson, moreover, applies retroactively to cases like the present case, in which a final judgment had not been reached at the time of the Patterson decision. Weaver, 922 F.2d at 1519. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment on appellant's § 1981 claim in light of Patterson. ³

B. The First Amendment Claim

Appellant's complaint also asserted a free speech claim, alleging that the Medical Center's action against the appellant was taken in retaliation for comments critical of overall operating room cleanliness and her supervisors' assignment of cleaning responsibilities. On appeal, Pearson contends that the district court erred in ruling that she failed to create any genuine issue of material fact as to the elements set forth in Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983). Connick limits First Amendment review of a government employer's dismissal of a worker to those cases in which the underlying expression can "be fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern...." Id. at 146, 103 S.Ct. at 1690. Appellant argues that her remarks should be accorded First Amendment protection, because they touched on O.R. conditions that were potentially hazardous to patients and addressed deficiencies in the functioning of a publicly funded facility--both matters of some public significance. ⁴

The threshold question of whether such speech "relate[s] to matters of public concern is a question of law, and is therefore, readily susceptible to disposition on summary judgment." Ferrara v. Mills, 781 F.2d 1508, 1515 (11th Cir.1986). As summary judgment is not precluded by any factual questions about Pearson's subjective, internal motivation in speaking on these matters, we accordingly inquire into the content, form, and context of Pearson's complaints in order to determine whether her comments regarding O.R. conditions--hence pertaining to matters...