Snyder v. The Neb. Med. Ctr.
| Decision Date | 10 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 8:20CV196 |
| Parties | CAROL SNYDER, Plaintiff, v. THE NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER and NEBRASKA MEDICINE, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Nebraska |
This matter is before the Court on defendants The Nebraska Medical Center (“Medical Center”) and Nebraska Medicine's (“Nebraska Medicine” and collectively, “defendants”) Motion for Summary Judgment (Filing No. 36). Also pending is plaintiff Carol Snyder's (“Snyder”) related Motion to Exclude Defendants' Rebuttal Evidence, or in the Alternative, for Leave to Submit Sur-Reply (Filing No. 54). For the reasons stated below, Snyder's motion is denied and the defendants' motion for summary judgment is granted.
Snyder is an experienced human-resources (“HR”) executive. On September 25, 2017, she began working for the Medical Center as an HR Business Partner (“HR Business Partner”)-a position that is exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. Snyder and the other HR Business Partners reported to Andy Noon (“Noon”), the Medical Center's Director of Talent Management. Noon, in turn, reported to Chief Human Resources Officer Frank Venuto (“Venuto”).
Snyder's primary role was to support Julie Lazure (“Lazure”) and her team. Lazure is the Vice President for Operations for Acute Care, and she oversees the emergency department and inpatient operations and services. Lazure saw the HR Business Partner as an “HR Expert” who could help with complex issues, review issues related to turnover and engagement, and provide guidance on leader development. As a result of the 24/7 nature of acute care, Lazure expects leaders in her department to be visible and available. She expects them to show up to meetings because the staff will receive a negative message if they don't.
Noon likewise believes it is important for human resources team members to be at work. Noon nonetheless allowed Snyder and other members of his team the flexibility to occasionally work from home, though he still generally expected an eight-hour shift. Snyder states Noon never communicated those expectations to her. As a salaried employee, she expected to work as much as required to get her work done.
Between 2017 and 2019, each individual manager had discretion to determine whether and to what extent to permit employees to work from home. Managers also had discretion in managing their employees' Paid Time Off (“PTO”).
The Medical Center's PTO policy permitted employees to use PTO for planned absences, like vacations and medical appointments, and for unscheduled absences, including those due to unforeseen illness. The policy directed employees to report unscheduled time off in accordance with established standards. If an HR Business Partner wanted to use PTO, they would record it in the Kronos database. Noon monitored the database for all HR Business Partners and approved their requests for leave.
About two months after she began working for the Medical Center Snyder started reporting that she was unable to come to work because she did not feel well. At times, she told Noon she would work from home, other times she did not. Some absences were recorded as PTO, others weren't. By the defendants' count, between October 25, 2017, and September 28, 2018, Snyder was out of the office at least 62 days while employed at the Medical Center-far more than other HR Business Partners. More precisely, the defendants report Snyder “was unable to report to work due to illness or injury 26 times, requested to work from home without a stated reason 12 times, worked from home without notifying Noon 6 times, and worked from home 1 day due to a family member's appointment.” They further note “[s]he also took 14 days of PTO and stated she would put in PTO for 3 additional days but failed to do so.” By comparison, the defendants state that, excluding PTO and using Snyder's calculations, the four other HR Business Partners worked from home as few as one and no more than twelve days in that same period.
Snyder maintains she always had Noon's permission to work from home and that if she was unable to work, she used PTO. Snyder states her “requests for time off, to work from home and PTO entry practices were not dissimilar from other [HR Business Partners].”
Lazure was generally satisfied with Snyder's actual work performance, but in the fall of 2018, she received complaints from three different people that Snyder was canceling meetings, which caused frustration and disruption when they had to be rescheduled. Previously unaware of the issue Lazure confirmed the cancelations with her secretary. Lazure then informed Noon that Snyder was canceling meetings at the last minute and that it had been happening for a while. Lazure explained the cancelations were causing problems for her team because they needed Snyder present and available to support them. At the time Lazure advised Noon of the issue, Snyder was out of the office for a week.
Noon began investigating Snyder's attendance. He reviewed his emails and text messages to determine how often she was absent. He also checked whether she entered all her absences as PTO. Noon learned Snyder had not recorded most of her illness-related absences as PTO. Noon also identified at least five instances where Snyder canceled a meeting because she was sick.
Noon met with Snyder on October 1, 2018, to discuss her absences. When he noted she had not recorded PTO to cover all of her sick days, Snyder responded that she had worked from home. Noon told Snyder he never said she could work from home when she was sick. He later testified he assumed she would not be working a full shift when she called in sick. Snyder responded she would just come to work sick. At the end of the meeting, Noon told Snyder to give the matter more thought and they would meet again in two days.
Noon testified that after the meeting, he was leaning toward discharging Snyder but wanted input from employee relations, internal legal counsel, and Venuto. Noon ultimately determined discharge was the best course because he thought Snyder was defensive and he felt like trust “had been broken with [the] operations team.” On October 2, 2018, Noon advised Lazure that he thought they needed to “go in a different direction” with Snyder. He asked for Lazure's input, saying he had “lost confidence.” Lazure, who had met with Snyder for two hours and found her “apologetic and embarrassed, ” responded,
After meeting with Noon on October 1, 2018, Snyder spoke with the Medical Center's in-house counsel, Aimee Bataillon (“Bataillon”), about her discussion with Noon. Snyder and Bataillon discussed Snyder's medical condition and that Noon “was not offering family medical leave to [her].” Snyder reports Bataillon also advised her how to apply for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (“FMLA”), 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. Bataillon did not tell Noon about her discussion with Snyder, and he was not aware they met before Snyder's discharge.
On October 2, 2018, Snyder created an online account through the Medical Center's third-party FMLA administrator. Snyder did not submit a request for leave at that time. She testified she could not submit a claim online.
The next day, Noon terminated Snyder's employment. He notified her she was being terminated for timecard falsification and her lack of availability. Snyder attributes most of her absences to a long history of migraines caused by severe anxiety and depression. In addition to migraines, Snyder experiences blurred vision, dizziness, and vomiting. In previous jobs, Snyder occasionally worked from home, went on short-term disability, and took FMLA leave as a result of anxiety and depression. In March 2018, Snyder notified Noon she had a migraine but would work from home as much as she could.
Snyder was an experienced HR professional, having dealt with ADA and FMLA requirements and having applied for FMLA leave in a past job. Notwithstanding that experience and knowledge, she never requested a reasonable accommodation for her condition while employed at the Medical Center and did not request FMLA leave until weeks after her termination. Snyder concedes her medical condition impacted her ability to get to work and to perform certain tasks at times but says she always got the job done. She maintains she did not need a formal accommodation or leave until Noon advised her that she would no longer be able to work from home on occasion.
After her termination, Snyder applied for and received Social Security Disability benefits. For purposes of those benefits, she has been disabled since October 3, 2018-the date of her termination.
In applying for benefits, Snyder asserted her medical conditions were not related to work. The defendants state that on her application for benefits, Snyder asserted, Snyder does not deny making those statements but questions their materiality. Snyder explains her termination and the accusations of dishonesty exacerbated her anxiety and depression. She states she nonetheless continues to try to find employment that will accommodate her medical conditions.
Snyder timely filed discrimination charges with the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity...
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