Uppal v. Welch
| Decision Date | 19 May 2016 |
| Docket Number | 15 C 8077 |
| Parties | PRABHJOT UPPAL, M.D., Plaintiff, v. K. MICHAEL WELCH, ROSALIND FRANKLIN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND SCIENCE, RALPH E. MECZYK, ANTHONY A. ARMADA, JAMES H. SKOGSBERGH, ADVOCATE HEALTH AND HOSPITAL CORPORATION dba ADVOCATE LUTHERAN GENERAL, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Plaintiff Prabhjot Uppal, M.D. ("Dr. Uppal") filed this pro se action against various defendants on September 14, 2015. See Dkt. 1. The Court dismissed Dr. Uppal's original 83-page complaint for failure to comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a), see Dkt. 12, after which she filed an Amended Complaint naming as defendants Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (the "University"), K. Michael Welch, Advocate Health and Hospital Corporation d/b/a Advocate Lutheran General ("Lutheran General"), Anthony A. Armada, James H. Skogsbergh, and Ralph E. Meczyk. Now before the Court are all defendants' motions to dismiss. See Dkts. 21, 30, 34. For the following reasons, all three motions are granted.
The allegations in Dr. Uppal's Amended Complaint1 comprise 140 paragraphs, address events spanning over a decade, and involve prior state criminal proceedings against her, her own (unsuccessful) civil action against the University in this district, and certain administrative complaints. As required under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the Court assumes these allegations to be true. And in concluding that they require dismissal of Dr. Uppal's claims as untimely, barred by res judicata, and for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted, the Court has considered them carefully and in detail. Here is a summary of what Dr. Uppal alleges.
Dr. Uppal earned her Doctorate of Medicine degree from the defendant University in June 2005, after which "she began a one-year preliminary internal medicine residency" at Lutheran General in July 2005. Dkt. 15, ¶ 14. According to her Complaint, Dr. Uppal was told during the first month of her residency that a neurosurgeon named Dr. George Bovis "had written a letter to the Department of Medicine demanding that restrictions be placed on Dr. Uppal's training," id. at ¶ 15; a week later, she was required "to sign a piece of paper agreeing to restrictions on her training which included not having contact with any neurosurgical patients, with Dr. Bovis, his patients or any of his partners," id. at ¶ 16; and four months after that, she was "terminated from her residency position" and received a letter "stating she was terminated for violating the restrictions" in the paper she had signed. Id. at ¶ 20.
Dr. Uppal further alleges that about seven months after her termination, in June 2006, she filed an EEOC complaint against Lutheran General for "sex discrimination/retaliation," id. at ¶ 22; and less than two months afterward, Dr. Bovis "began filing false police complaints about Dr. Uppal with the Northbrook Police Department." Id. at ¶ 23. During the same timeframe, between 2005 and 2007, the University and Defendant Welch allegedly "obstructed Dr. Uppal's efforts to apply for other residency positions including destroying letters of recommendation, failing to upload documents and failing to perform other duties as mandated by the Association of American Medical Colleges." Id. at ¶ 24. Eventually, in the fall of 2007, Dr. Uppal "was able to send out completed residency applications and received numerous interviews with residency programs around the country," during which "the American Medical Association and other third parties became apprised of Uppal's situation" and unspecified "violations" at the University and Lutheran General. Id. at ¶ 26. According to her Complaint, the University and Lutheran General then retaliated against Dr. Uppal for her communications with these third parties by sending her a letter in August 2008 "stating that she was 'no longer endorsed by the Chicago Medical School.'" Id. at ¶ 29. This had the effect of "permanently barring her from applying to residency programs; a requirement to be licensed." Id.
Meanwhile, in about June 2008, Dr. Uppal hired Defendant Meczyk "to represent her against the false charges Bovis had brought against her in 2006." Id. at ¶¶ 4, 30. According to Dr. Uppal, Mr. Meczyk directed her to contact "someone fromthe hospital" who was "involved" in the events leading to the termination of her residency in 2005 "to speak for her," or "he wouldn't prepare her case for trial." Id. at ¶ 31. Specifically, Mr. Meczyk allegedly "instructed her to contact Dr. Ruge advising her that she would not be in violation of any court orders or laws." Id. at ¶ 33. But after she allegedly attempted to page Dr. Ruge to her number on January 20, 2009, "Dr. Uppal was taken into custody for violating the no-contact terms of her bond," and "was charged with witness harassment for allegedly contacting and communicating with Bovis on January 20, 2009" (not Dr. Ruge), although Dr. Uppal insists that Dr. Bovis "was not who she had paged, intended to contact or believed she had spoken to." Id. at ¶¶ 34-35; Dkt. 24, at 4. Dr. Uppal further alleges that Mr. Meczyk later assured her "that there would be no trial, that the charges would be dismissed and to be at court on November 3, 2009." Dkt. 15, ¶ 37. But when she appeared on that date, Dr. Uppal "was told by Meczyk that she was 'guaranteed to lose' and she had to plead guilty to [a] felony charge." Id. at ¶ 40. And when she refused, Mr. Meczyk allegedly "misled the Court to believe that Uppal had absented herself in order to have a warrant issued for her arrest and have her taken into custody," and thus "coerce Uppal to plead guilty." Id. at ¶¶ 40-41.
According to her Complaint, Dr. Uppal was thereafter "placed in Maximum Security" and remained in custody until January 19, 2010. Id. at ¶¶ 41, 45, 76; Dkt. 37, at 40. As a result, she was allegedly unable to contact the lawyer handling her discrimination case, which was due to be filed by November 14, 2009 (havingreceived a right-to-sue-letter from the EEOC), so she "requested Meczyk to make sure her EEOC case was filed on time." Dkt. 15, ¶¶ 36, 42. "Upon being released from custody," however, "Dr. Uppal learned that the EEOC case had not been filed and, since the 90 day period in which to file had expired, the case was closed." Id. at ¶ 43. According to Dr. Uppal, this loss of her ability to pursue her discrimination claim paved the way for a planned merger between the University and Lutheran General, since "the Liaison Committee on Medical Education ('LCME') would not approve of the merger until the Plaintiff's EEOC complaint was resolved." See id. at page 2 and ¶ 44. Thus, with her EEOC case so "obstructed," the merger between the University and Lutheran General "was approved by the LCME." Id. at ¶ 44.
As for the criminal charges against her, Dr. Uppal claims that on January 19, 2010, she "capitulated to a guilty plea never knowing any facts about the charges against her." Id. at ¶ 43. She also alleges that she has since "made numerous attempts to uncover the material facts and evidence of the 2009 criminal case," id. at ¶ 45, but was obstructed by her various attorneys, including Mr. Meczyk. Id. at ¶¶ 45-47, 52-53. According to Dr. Uppal's Complaint: (1) "In 2011, after Uppal's out-of-state lawyers contacted Meczyk to have her case file turned over to them, he brought false violation of probation charges against Uppal in an attempt to have her taken into custody," ¶ 45; (2) "Between January and October 2013, multiple efforts to secure Uppal's file from Meczyk, including the initiation of proceedings to hold him in contempt, failed," ¶ 47; (3) "In the Spring of 2014, Uppal was able to subpoena thecall detail for her phone number on January 20, 2009, however, it became clear that the attorneys she was hiring to represent her were being pressured not to pursue the case and to prevent exonerating evidence of the 2009 case from coming into Uppal's possession," ¶ 52; and (4) "From 2014 through 2015, Uppal's second appellate counsel, Nishay Sanan, repeatedly lied to her and her family, refused to authenticate the incoming numbers to her phone on January 20 2009 that would exonerate her, falsified and tampered with evidence and took various other actions to conceal the fact that Bovis had lied under oath to secure false criminal charges against her." ¶ 53.
Dr. Uppal also alleges sabotage by the University IT Staff. She claims that they responded to a 2013 request for her academic records by committing "various computer crimes," including "a denial-of-service ('DOS') attack against Dr. Uppal." Dkt. 15, ¶ 49. And in September 2013, while a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education regarding this alleged attack was pending, Dr. Uppal maintains that the University's IT staff "hacked into Uppal's email," and "sent emails from her private account," thereby "triggering a second malicious DOS attack." Id. at ¶¶ 50, 121.
Dr. Uppal eventually sued the University in this district in April 2015. See Uppal v. Rosalind Franklin Univ. of Med. & Sci., No. 15-cv-03806, 2015 WL 5062823 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 26, 2015) (dismissal with prejudice). According to her Complaint in the instant action, that earlier action sought "in part to address the continuing issue of [the University's] obvious and ongoing interference with her legal cases both directly and through third parties." Dkt. 15, ¶ 54. In addition, Dr. Uppal'scomplaint in that prior suit alleged the same "computer crimes" by the University's IT Staff that she alleges here. See Dkt. 12 in Case No. 15-cv-3806, ¶ 27.2 It also alleged the same refusal by the University as of August 2008 to support Dr. Uppal's applications to other residency programs that she likewise alleges in this case, including a citation to the same August 25, 2008, letter from the University that Dr. Uppal cites and submits in this case. See Dkt. 15, ¶...
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