St. Croix v. Univ. Of Co. Health Scie. Cen.
| Decision Date | 17 May 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 05CA2746.,05CA2746. |
| Citation | 166 P.3d 230 |
| Parties | Jennifer ST. CROIX, M.D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER and Mark Nehler, M.D., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
Zodrow, P.C., John F. McBride, John J. Zodrow, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Office of University Counsel, Patrick T. O'Rourke, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellee University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Montgomery Little Soran Murray & Kuhn, P.C., Amy E. Cook-Olson, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellee Mark Nehler, M.D.
Opinion by Judge BERNARD.
In this employment discrimination case, plaintiff, Dr. Jennifer St. Croix, appeals the trial court's summary judgment in favor of defendants, the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC) and Dr. Mark Nehler, her supervisor. We affirm.
The following facts are undisputed. Dr. St. Croix is a woman of Asian descent who was employed in a general surgery residency at UCHSC from June 2001 until January 2003. A residency is a four-year educational program following medical school that emphasizes fundamental technical skills and allows residents to learn pre-operative and post-operative care. To show residents the various surgical procedures, UCHSC requires them to rotate through a number of surgical specialties. Dr. St. Croix received training at four Denver hospitals, and was evaluated by an attending physician at the conclusion of each rotation. Dr. St. Croix's evaluations were consistently poor. She also scored at the bottom of her class on written examinations.
The promotions committee did not believe Dr. St. Croix adequately completed her first year of residency, but did not have a program in place to allow her to repeat the year. Thus, in April 2002, the committee promoted Dr. St. Croix to the second year of residency, but placed her on probation. Under the conditions of her probation, Dr. St. Croix was to perform at the "A" and "B" level to remain in the residency program. However, through the end of 2002, she continued to receive many "C" and "D" marks and poor evaluations from attending physicians.
In December 2002, Dr. Nehler was informed by another surgical resident that the resident had seen pornographic photographs of Dr. St. Croix on the Internet. Dr. Nehler downloaded the photos and showed them to Dr. St. Croix. She provided no explanation about them.
Subsequently, Dr. St. Croix admitted she posed for nude photographs when she was in college, but claimed they were "tasteful." She suggested the photographs Dr. Nehler showed her may have been altered from their original form. In an affidavit filed in opposition to UCHSC and Dr. Nehler's motion for summary judgment, Dr. St. Croix stated the photographs were not of her, but that they "resembled" her.
Knowledge of the photographs spread throughout the residency program and to the hospitals in which the residents worked. Dr. St. Croix claims she was subjected to rumors, innuendo, "knowing" looks, and comments, all of which caused her great embarrassment.
Dr. Nehler met with Dr. St. Croix on January 21, 2003. In an affidavit submitted in opposition to defendants' summary judgment motion, Dr. St. Croix stated Dr. Nehler asked for her resignation at this meeting, citing the pornographic pictures as the primary reason for the request, which pictures had "caused [them] to review [her] file and decide to terminate [her] from the program." According to the affidavit, Dr. Nehler said the photographs were the "precipitating factor" leading to the reassessment of Dr. St. Croix's status in the residency program.
Dr. St. Croix chose not to resign. Ten days after the January 21 meeting, Dr. Nehler sent Dr. St. Croix a letter. The letter stated Dr. St. Croix was being terminated from the residency program because she had not met the terms of her academic probation. The letter did not make any reference to the photographs.
In March 2003, Dr. Nehler submitted a letter to an associate dean of UCHSC explaining the decision to terminate Dr. St. Croix. He summarized the basis for the termination decision as follows:
[T]he fact that information regarding the sexually explicit website and advertisements was well known by faculty and residents constituted a grave distraction to her training within the residency program, and made further remediation impossible. The sexually explicit website was one factor, but ultimately, the decision was based on the fact that she had not progressed, that further remediation was not possible, and that she had already violated the terms of her probation.
Pursuant to UCHSC policy, Dr. St. Croix sought review of the decision to terminate her from the residency program by a committee of doctors. At the review hearing, Dr. Nehler said many employees at different hospitals had seen the photographs. He added he was concerned patients' families or the press would find out about them, raising issues about UCHSC's credibility. Dr. Nehler stated that knowledge of the photographs would make it very difficult to remediate [Dr. St. Croix] . . . if she was an A resident, but in her situation way before these pictures came out, she was failing academically. [Learning of the photographs] cause[d] us to scrutinize her probation more than we had previously and review everything carefully. And we really realized that she was failing academically. . . . [W]e didn't [think] we could remediate her in this environment and we moved forward.
After hearing the statements of Dr. Nehler, Dr. St. Croix, and several doctors who had supervised Dr. St. Croix, as well as reviewing several documents and written evaluations of Dr. St. Croix's performance, the committee upheld Dr. Nehler's decision to terminate Dr. St. Croix from the residency program.
Dr. St. Croix subsequently filed suit against UCHSC and Dr. Nehler, claiming she was improperly terminated from the residency program. She alleged she had been subjected to disparate treatment on account of her race and gender, because other residents who were not members of a protected class were treated more leniently than she had been treated, despite having engaged in equally serious or more serious misconduct. Dr. St. Croix also contended she had endured a hostile work environment, created by rumors and innuendo arising from broad knowledge of the photographs, and UCHSC and Dr. Nehler had not taken any action to abate it or discipline those who had sexually harassed Dr. St. Croix by circulating the photographs.
We note Dr. St. Croix did not, before the trial court or on appeal, rely upon § 24-34-402.5, C.R.S.2006 (), and argue her termination was due to her "engaging in any lawful activity off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours." Thus, we do not address the application of § 24-34-402.5.
UCHSC and Dr. Nehler moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted the motion, concluding there were no disputed material facts on the following issues: (1) Dr. St. Croix did not establish a prima facie case of disparate treatment because she was not similarly situated to other residents; her conduct in posing for the pictures was different from the conduct of other residents in looking at the photographs and gossiping about them; (2) even if she had established a prima facie case, Dr. St. Croix did not establish that UCHSC and Dr. Nehler's nondiscriminatory reason for her discharge — failing to satisfy the terms of her probation — was a pretext for discrimination against her because of her race or gender; and (3) the conduct Dr. St. Croix described as the basis for her hostile work environment claim — unspecified comments made "under people's breaths" as they passed her in the hall, snickers, and "knowing looks" — was insufficient to establish the existence of a hostile work environment.
We review de novo a trial court's grant of summary judgment. Aspen Wilderness Workshop, Inc. v. Colo. Water Conservation Bd., 901 P.2d 1251, 1256 (Colo.1995). Summary judgment is appropriate only if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. C.R.C.P. 56(c); HealthONE v. Rodriguez, 50 P.3d 879, 887-88 (Colo.2002). In order to determine whether summary judgment is proper, the nonmoving party is entitled to the benefit of all favorable inferences that may be reasonably drawn from the undisputed facts, and all doubts as to whether an issue of fact exists must be resolved against the moving party. Mancuso v. United Bank, 818 P.2d 732, 736 (Colo. 1991).
A court must consider "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any," in determining whether to grant a motion for summary judgment. C.R.C.P. 56(c). Summary judgment is a drastic remedy, to be granted only when there is a clear showing that the applicable standards have been met. Cary v. United of Omaha Life Ins. Co., 68 P.3d 462, 466 (Colo.2003).
Dr. St. Croix's employment discrimination claim arises under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. Section 24-34-402(1)(a), C.R.S.2006, provides:
It shall be a discriminatory or unfair employment practice . . . [f]or an employer to refuse to hire, to discharge, to promote or demote, to harass during the course of employment, or to discriminate in matters of compensation against any person otherwise qualified because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, age, national origin, or ancestry.
The language of this section parallels that of its federal counterpart in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1962, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a), and thus, we look to federal cases for...
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