Smith v. Ochsner Health Sys., CIVIL ACTION NO. 17-9899
| Decision Date | 13 November 2018 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 17-9899 |
| Citation | 353 F.Supp.3d 483 |
| Parties | Daniel G. SMITH v. OCHSNER HEALTH SYSTEM and Ochsner Clinic Foundation |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana |
Kenneth Charles Bordes, Kenneth C. Bordes, Attorney at Law, LLC, New Orleans, LA, Joseph Russ Bryant, Pro Hac Vice, Jackson, Shields, Yeiser & Holt, Memphis, TN, for Daniel G. Smith.
Jennifer F. Kogos, David K. Theard, Jones Walker, New Orleans, LA, for Ochsner Health System and Ochsner Clinic Foundation.
ORDER & REASONS
Before the Court is the motion of defendants Ochsner Health System and Ochsner Clinic Foundation (collectively "Ochsner") for summary judgment,1 to which plaintiff Daniel G. Smith ("Smith") responds in opposition,2 and in support of which Ochsner replies.3 Having considered the parties' memoranda and the applicable law, the Court issues this Order & Reasons.
This Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") action arises out of Smith's allegations that he did not receive overtime compensation while employed as a non-exempt transplant (or organ procurement) coordinator for Ochsner.4 The job description for a transplant coordinator at Ochsner included the following duties and responsibilities: responding to all calls for organs offered to the Ochsner Transplant Center; evaluating the medical management of the donor; verifying consent; communicating with physicians and surgeons to obtain acceptance of an organ; preserving the organ; arranging transplantation; transporting organs; and completing all associated reports.5 The parties essentially agree that transplant coordinators at Ochsner rotated among four categories of duties.6
Donor Coordinator . The first category of duties was that of "donor coordinator." In this capacity, the transplant coordinator would receive communications from the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency ("LOPA") regarding organs potentially available for transplant.7 The donor coordinator would then access the donor's information on a database.8 On occasion, when acting as donor coordinator, Smith would identify a mistake in the database or a need for additional information, and he would contact the donor's hospital to obtain the correct information to provide to the transplant surgeon.9 After gathering this information, the donor coordinator could either decline the organ or, if the organ satisfied Ochsner's criteria (which is regulated by UNOS), enter a "provisional yes" before contacting the surgeon.10 The "provisional yes" indicated Ochsner was interested in the organ.11 To comply with UNOS regulations, Ochsner's established procedure required the donor coordinator to contact the surgeon on call and relay certain standard information.12 However, Smith testified to having rejected an organ without first contacting a surgeon if, in his experience and as dictated by the UNOS regulations, he knew the surgeon would not accept it.13 Nonetheless, no coordinator's decision was final; all decisions were reviewed by the surgeon.14 Dr. George Loss, a transplant surgeon at Ochsner who worked with Smith, testified that "it takes two to say yes ... and three to say no" to an organ, a rule of thumb that both parties agree constitutes Ochsner's policy.15 Specifically, according to Dr. Loss, to accept an organ, the recovery coordinator and the surgeon may say "yes"; but to reject an organ, the recovery coordinator and two surgeons must say "no."16 Smith admits that he advocated for very sick Ochsner patients to receive organs ahead of patients at other transplant centers, as directed by his supervisors and as permitted under UNOS protocol.17
Although LOPA could provide the matching program's results directly to the surgeon, Ochsner handled "this aspect in-house" by employing coordinators such as Smith.18 Smith testified that, as donor coordinator, he communicated to the surgeon basic information generated by LOPA's matching program, such as the potential recipient's status on the list and the recipient's height and weight.19 On occasion, a donor coordinator would discuss with Dr. Loss, as transplant surgeon, the decision whether to accept the organ.20 Dr. Loss testified that the organ procurement coordinators were "absolutely critical" to Ochsner's success as a transplant center.21 Dr. Loss compared his interaction with the donor coordinator to that with a resident about a patient in the ICU: 22 According to Smith, the surgeons 23
Once an organ was accepted, the donor coordinator would arrange for the transportation of the organs.24 Although the organ procurement coordinators would not enter into transportation contracts on behalf of Ochsner, they would arrange transportation with companies under contract with Ochsner.25 In one instance, Ochsner implemented Smith's suggestion to purchase flight hours, rather than renting planes, as a means of managing transportation costs.26
Fly Out Coordinator . The second category of duties for transplant coordinators was that of "fly out" coordinator. A fly out coordinator traveled with the medical team to assist in recovering the organ.27 The fly out coordinator would contact the operating room where the organ was to be recovered, and then the fly out coordinator would apprise the surgeon and Ochsner's operating room of the organ's history and condition (such as the timeline of surgery, biopsy results, size, and viability problems, including whether there had been unexpected occurrences potentially affecting the organ like no heartbeat or no blood pressure).28 To transport particular organs, Smith helped to create checklists of supplies and then stocked them based upon the surgeon's directives.29 But Smith insists that his supervisors would authorize supply orders costing more than $10,000.30
Administrative and Backup Coordinator . The third category of a transplant coordinator's duties was that of administrative coordinator. An administrative coordinator was responsible for completing the paperwork related to the organ and Ochsner's patients.31 For instance, after Ochsner's committee confirmed that a patient needed an organ transplant, the coordinator would input the patient's information into a database to be matched to a donor by the computerized system.32
The fourth and final category of an organ procurement coordinator's duties was that of backup coordinator. In this capacity, an organ procurement coordinator would assist with lab work and donors as needed.33
The Rotating Duties in General . Under the supervision of a surgeon, the transplant coordinators working at Ochsner during Smith's employment conferred with each other to establish their schedule of rotating duties.34 Generally, the hours were Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., though the coordinators were permitted to arrive later the next day following a late-night shift.35 Smith and Kyle Leboeuf, who was also an organ procurement coordinator at Ochsner, testified that they would be on call for four days at a time.36 Ochsner submits Leboeuf's testimony for the proposition that the organ procurement coordinators spent the majority of their time on donor coordinator duties.37 Smith disputes this, citing Ochsner's Job Performance Standards that designate duties by weight.38 These standards designate (1) fifteen percent weight to responding to calls for organ offers (including being on call "24 hours a day, 365 days/year"); (2) thirty percent weight to receiving and transporting organs for transplant
preservation (including verifying legal aspects of the donor's consent and medical chart); (3) ten percent weight to having supplies and equipment on hand for cold storage preservation of organs; (4) ten percent weight to sending blood and tissue typing samples to the lab for cross-matching purposes; (5) ten percent weight to exchanges of donor/recipient information; (6) ten percent weight to preserving organs from living donor transplants; and (7) fifteen percent weight to assignment and documentation of costs and charges of the Ochsner Transplant Center's "organ procurement activities (i.e., procurement cost sheets, patient standard acquisition billing, professional fees, etc.)."39 The parties agree that Smith contacted and interviewed new employee applicants, but Smith insists that he had no authority to approve new hires.40
The parties agree that Ochsner hired Smith in April of 2001, but they disagree about the structure of his pay during the period from 2001 to 2012.41 While Smith contends that he reported hours worked and received only straight time pay for all hours worked, Ochsner maintains that Smith was paid a yearly salary, plus a nominal hourly fee for on-call time and an additional straight hourly rate for work conducted outside of his normal shifts.42 However, the parties agree that, from 2012 through his resignation in 2017, Ochsner paid Smith an annual salary and a single bonus.43 Further, the parties agree that, as of September 29, 2014 (three years prior to the filing of the complaint), Smith's annual salary was $121,971.20 (a weekly salary of $2,345.60) and that Smith would have been paid over $100,000 in 2017 had he not taken medical leave that year, as his weekly salary remained $2,345.60 until his resignation.44
In its motion for summary judgment, Ochsner seeks the dismissal of Smith's overtime claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq. , on the grounds that Smith was exempt from FLSA's...
To continue reading
Request your trial