Perry v. Schumacher Grp. of La., Corp.
| Decision Date | 13 March 2014 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 2:13-cv-36-FtM-29DNF |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida |
| Parties | PAMELA M. PERRY, M.D., Plaintiff, v. THE SCHUMACHER GROUP OF LOUISIANA, a Louisiana Corporation, THE SCHUMEACHER GROUP OF FLORIDA, INC., a Florida Corporation, COLLIER EMERGENCY GROUP, LLP, a Florida limited liability company, and HEALTH MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES, INC., Defendants. |
This matter comes before the Court on Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Counts VI, VII, and VIII of Plaintiff's Fourth Amended Complaint (Doc. #65) filed on August 29, 2013. Plaintiff filed a Response to Defendants' Motion (Doc. #69) on September 23, 2013. Defendants filed a Reply (Doc. #72) on October 14, 2013. For the reasons set forth below, the motion is granted.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), a complaint must contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). This obligation "requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will notdo." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (citations omitted). To survive dismissal, the factual allegations must be "plausible" and "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Id. at 555. See also Edwards v. Prime Inc., 602 F.3d 1276, 1291 (11th Cir. 2010). This requires "more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citations omitted).
In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court must accept all factual allegations in a complaint as true and take them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007), but "[l]egal conclusions without adequate factual support are entitled to no assumption of truth." Mamani v. Berzain, 654 F.3d 1148, 1153 (11th Cir. 2011) (citations omitted). "Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. "Factual allegations that are merely consistent with a defendant's liability fall short of being facially plausible." Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333, 1337 (11th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus, the Court engages in a two-step approach: "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." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.
On August 15, 2013, plaintiff Pamela Perry, M.D. (Dr. Perry or plaintiff) filed a Fourth Amended Complaint asserting claims for racial discrimination under Title VII (Count I), gender discrimination under Title VII (Count II), racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Count III), retaliation under Title VII (Count IV), trade libel (Count V), negligence (Count VI), breach of contract (Count VII), and breach of implied duty of good faith and fair dealing (Count VIII). (Doc. #61.) In support thereof, plaintiff alleges the following:
In 2011, the Schumacher Group of Louisiana and the Schumacher Group of Florida (collectively, the Schumacher Group) formed the Collier Emergency Group to enter into an Exclusive Agreement for Emergency Services (Exclusive Agreement) with Naples HMA to staff the emergency departments at two hospitals under the Physician's Regional Healthcare System: Physician's Regional - Pine Ridge (Pine Ridge) and Physician's Regional - Collier Boulevard (Collier). (Doc. #61, ¶¶ 15-17.) Pursuant to the terms of the Exclusive Agreement, Naples HMA had the right to approve any physician submitted by the Schumacher Group or the Collier Emergency Group to work at Pine Ridge. (Id. ¶ 18.)
In June of 2011, Dr. Perry, an African American female and emergency physician, was selected by Naples HMA to be the MedicalDirector at Pine Ridge. (Id. ¶ 20.) The position was subsequently offered to Dr. Perry by the Collier Emergency Group. Dr. Perry accepted the position and entered into three separate agreements with the Collier Emergency Group: a Business Associate Agreement, a Physician Agreement, and a Medical Director Agreement. (Id. ¶ 21.) During her tenure as Medical Director, Dr. Perry made significant improvements at Pine Ridge and received ample recognition for her hard work and dedication. (Id. ¶¶ 37-49.)
While Dr. Perry was making improvements at Pine Ridge, Dr. David Childress, her counterpart at Collier and a Caucasian male, was doing the exact opposite. (Id. ¶¶ 50-51.) Although Dr. Perry's performance exceeded that of Dr. Childress, she was not afforded the same leniency and protection that was provided to Dr. Childress. (Id. ¶ 52.) In addition to the disparate treatment, Dr. Perry learned that Bobbie Hamilton, the Emergency Department Nursing Director at Pine Ridge, had issues with her because of her race and gender. During her time at Pine Ridge, Hamilton made derogatory and racists comments regarding Dr. Perry. (Id. ¶¶ 53, 63-73.) On March 7, 2012, Dr. Perry learned that Hamilton and Carol McConn, the Chief Nursing Officer at Pine Ridge, falsely claimed that she was not acting in compliance with her role as a physician and Medical Director. (Id. ¶¶ 74-76.) The Schumacher Group and the Collier Emergency Group were aware of the issuespertaining to Hamilton and informed Dr. Perry that they will "take care of [her]." (Id. ¶ 80-82.)
On April 5, 2012, the Schumacher Group informed Dr. Perry that Naples HMA was exercising its contractual right to terminate her employment and was giving her the required notice of sixty days. Plaintiff, however, was later informed that her last shift would occur before the expiration of the sixty days. (Id. ¶ 87.) Following her termination, Dr. Perry filed a complaint with the EEOC and was issued a right to sue letter. (Id. ¶¶ 90-92.)
The Schumacher Group of Louisiana, the Schumacher Group of Florida, and the Collier Emergency Group (collectively, the Schumacher defendants) contend that Counts VI, VII, and VII should be dismissed because plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Count VI of plaintiff's Fourth Amended Complaint alleges that the Collier Emergency Group was negligent in carrying out its duties under the Exclusive Agreement. Paragraph 13.3 of the Exclusive Agreement provides as follows:
The Medical Provider [the Collier Emergency Group] will ensure that each Emergency Professional will immediately report any suspected violations of law or other questionable conduct involving the Hospital or any employee to the Hospital's Compliance Officer and/or the HMA confidential helpline or post office box. Thisprovision will apply even after this Agreement expires or is terminated.
(Doc. #61-3, p. 7.) Plaintiff alleges that the Collier Emergency Group breached its duty under paragraph 13.3 by instructing her to not report the alleged harassment to Naples HMA, and that she would have reported the harassment absent such an instruction, which would have presumably resulted in an investigation of her complaints. (Doc. #61, ¶¶ 166-167.)
In order to state a claim for negligence under Florida law, the plaintiff must allege (1) a duty or obligation recognized by the law requiring the defendant to protect others from unreasonable risks; (2) a breach of that duty; (3) a reasonably close casual connection between the conduct and the resulting injury; and (4) actual loss or damages. Williams v. Davis, 974 So. 2d 1052, 1056 (Fla. 2007) (citing Clay Elec. Coop., Inc. v. Johnson, 873 So. 2d 1182, 1185 (Fla. 2003)). The Schumacher defendants assert that plaintiff has not and cannot allege the existence of a duty because Dr. Perry was not a party to the Exclusive Agreement nor was she an intended third-party beneficiary.
A duty of care is "a minimal threshold legal requirement for opening the courthouse doors." McCain v. Fla. Power Corp., 593 So. 2d 500, 502 (Fla. 1992) (footnote and emphasis omitted). In order to establish the existence of a duty, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the activity at issue created a foreseeable zoneof risk. Williams v. Davis, 974 So. 2d 1052, 1056 n.2 (Fla. 2007) (citing McCain, 593 So. 2d at 502). "The proper way of determining whether a duty existed is to decide whether the defendant's actions created a foreseeable zone of risk, not by whether the specific injury suffered was foreseeable by the defendant." Cheeks v. Dorsey, 846 So. 2d 1169, 1172 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003) (citing Florida Power & Light Co. v. Periera, 705 So. 2d 1359, 1361 (Fla. 1998)). The duty of care in a negligence action is a question of law. Id.
Here, plaintiff acknowledges that she lacks contractual privity or third-party beneficiary status, but nonetheless asserts that she was owed a duty because (1) the Collier Emergency Group had supervisory authority over her under the Exclusive Agreement; (2) she was a known third party who would be harmed if the Collier Emergency Group was negligent in carrying out the Exclusive Agreement; and (3) the Collier Emergency Group falsely told her that she did not have to report incidents to Naples HMA.
Plaintiff first asserts that she is permitted to recover for negligence in the absence of contractual privity pursuant to the holding in A.R. Moyer, Inc. v. Graham, 285 So. 2d 397 (Fla. 1973). In A.R. Moyer, the Supreme Court of Florida held that "a third party general contractor, who may foreseeably be injured or sustained an economic loss proximately caused by the negligentperformance of a contractual duty of an architect, has a cause of action against the alleged negligent architect, notwithstanding the absence of privity." Id. at 402. Given the supervisory nature of the relationship between the architect and the general contractor, the architect must "be placed under a duty imposed by law to perform without negligence his functions as they...
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