Wallace v. Methodist Hosp. System

• Decision Date: 25 February 2000
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A. H-97-0095.,CIV.A. H-97-0095.
• Parties: Veronica WALLACE, Plaintiff, v. THE METHODIST HOSPITAL SYSTEM, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas

Page 699

85 F.Supp.2d 699

Veronica WALLACE, Plaintiff, v. THE METHODIST HOSPITAL SYSTEM, Defendant.

No. CIV.A. H-97-0095.

United States District Court, S.D. Texas, Houston Division.

February 25, 2000.

Beatrice Mladenka-Fowler, Mladenka-Fowler & Associates, Shannon Breaux Sauceda, Mladenka-Fowler Adams & Associates, Houston, TX, for Veronica A. Wallace, plaintiff.

Tom M. Davis, Jr., Davis Oretsky et al., Houston, TX, for the Methodist Hospital System, Donna Hahus, defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND OPINION

ROSENTHAL, District Judge.

In this pregnancy discrimination case, plaintiff Veronica A. Wallace sued her former employer, The Methodist Hospital System ("Methodist"), for wrongful termination, alleging violations of section 701(k) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k), and section 5.01 of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, TEX. LABOR CODE ANN. § 21.051 (Vernon's 1996). (Docket Entry No. 1). Methodist terminated Wallace's employment as a nurse in the Medical Intensive Care Unit in December 1994, near the end of Wallace's third pregnancy in three years. Wallace alleged that Methodist terminated her employment because of her repeated pregnancies. Methodist responded that it discharged Wallace because she violated hospital policy by carrying out a medical procedure that required a doctor's order without obtaining such an order and by falsifying a medical record to show that a doctor's order had been given. A first trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial. The jury in the second trial found in favor of Wallace, awarding her $70,000 in compensatory damages and $437,500 in punitive damages. Methodist has moved for judgment as a matter of law ("JMOL") under Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (Docket Entry No. 117).

Methodist and Wallace filed a number of briefs addressing the post-verdict issues. (Docket Entry Nos. 119, 127, 130, 131, 132, 133).¹ Based on a careful consideration of the motion, the briefs, the parties' submissions, the trial record, and the applicable law, this court GRANTS Methodist's motion for judgment as a matter of law.² The reasons are set out below.

I. Background: The Evidence at Trial

Wallace began working at Methodist in March 1986 as a blood collector. (Tr. 183).³ She later moved to the neurophysiology department, working there as an EEG technician until 1991. (Tr. 183-185). She entered nursing school in 1990 and became a student professional nurse in the intensive care unit in 1991. (Tr. 187-188, 192). Wallace received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in April 1992. (Tr. 193).

Wallace accepted a job as a registered nurse ("RN") in Methodist's medical intensive care unit ("MICU") on October 1, 1992. (Tr. 204; P.Ex. 2). Wallace was pregnant when she began working in the MICU. Nurse Manager Donna Hahus supervised the approximately thirty-two nurses in the MICU. Tory Schmitz was Wallace's direct supervisor.

Wallace took a three month leave after the birth of her first child, from February 23, 1993 to June 5, 1993. (Tr. 1049; D. Ex. 15). Wallace received full pay and benefits throughout her maternity leave, using accumulated sick time, holiday time, and vacation time. (Tr. 219, 1049). When Wallace returned to work in June 1993, she used options Methodist made available to change her shift time from day to evening and began working a compressed-time schedule of three twelve-hour shifts, primarily on weekends. (Tr. 221-22, 246-47, 561-62).

Wallace testified that Hahus had become "less friendly" when Wallace returned to work after her first maternity leave, which Wallace asserted as evidence of Hahus's discriminatory animus. Wallace also testified that Hahus and Methodist allowed Wallace to work the hours and shifts she wanted when she returned from leave in June 1993. Wallace testified that, in her March 1994 evaluation, Schmitz and Hahus made statements that evidence discrimination. Wallace testified that Schmitz stated that Wallace was difficult to categorize because of her pregnancy-related absences, (Tr. 237), and that Hahus said she needed to "choose between nursing and family." (Tr. 227, 235-37). Schmitz acknowledged that Wallace's absences made it difficult to apply certain objective evaluative criteria to her. (Tr. 1003). Hahus denied making the statement attributed to her, instead testifying that she and Schmitz had some concerns about Wallace's recent performance that they raised in the meeting with Wallace. Wallace's evaluation score dropped 10 points from a year earlier, when she was also pregnant. However, Hahus and Schmitz testified that they gave Wallace satisfactory evaluations. There is no suggestion in the record that Wallace received a poor evaluation, that she missed any pay raise, or that her performance evaluations were a factor in the discharge decision.

The trial testimony was also undisputed that during Wallace's three-month maternity leave for the birth of her second child, from March 2, 1994 to June 5, 1994, Hahus helped Wallace maximize the amount of leave time for which she could be paid. During this maternity leave, Wallace had less accumulated time to draw upon than she had had during her first leave. Although a substantial part of the second maternity leave was unpaid, Hahus classified Wallace's maternity leave as excused absences rather than as unpaid leave, which allowed Wallace to continue accruing benefits, including vacation time, during her leave. (Tr. 1050). With Hahus's help, Wallace was able to increase the paid portion of her maternity leave. (Tr. 1050; D. Ex. 17).

Wallace returned to work on June 5, 1994. She learned that she was pregnant a short time later. (Tr. 248). When Wallace returned to work, she again used the compressed-time scheduling option to work the hours she chose — three 12-hour shifts each week instead of five 8-hour shifts. (Tr. 246, 626). Wallace received merit raises during this period. (Tr. 246). She continued to work full-time, on the schedule she selected, until her discharge.

Methodist fired Wallace on December 21, 1994, (D.Ex. 22), following an incident that occurred two days earlier. On December 19, 1994, Wallace performed a procedure on a patient without a physician's order to do so, and wrote in the patient's chart that a doctor had given Wallace a verbal order to do the procedure. Wallace had no such order when she made the entry and did the procedure. Wallace did not dispute that the incident occurred. However, she claimed that Methodist used the incident as a pretext for discrimination, in fact firing her because Donna Hahus "resented [her] being pregnant." (Tr. 252). At trial, Wallace presented evidence that she claimed demonstrated disparate discipline, that other nurses had similarly performed procedures without obtaining doctor's orders in advance, but with no adverse consequences. Wallace also pointed to the negative comments by Hahus and Schmitz in March 1994, and to comments in August 1994 and shortly after the discharge as "direct evidence" of discriminatory motive. (Docket Entry No. 119, p. 7).

Methodist contended that the decision to discharge Wallace had nothing to do with her pregnancies. Methodist told Wallace that she had been terminated because, on December 19, 1994, she "falsif[ied] a hospital record by writing a verbal order for a specific procedure that required a physician's order under hospital policy [] and then implement[ed] the procedure without a physician's knowledge or consent." (Docket Entry No. 117, p. 2). Methodist gave the same reason for Wallace's discharge at trial and in this motion.

Much of the relevant evidence as to the December 19, 1994 incident is undisputed. Wallace worked the 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. shift in the MICU that day. A patient of Dr. Kenneth Scott Lloyd, identified in the record as "Mr. B," was in the unit recovering from surgery on his aorta. (Tr. 718). Dr. Lloyd is an internal medicine and pulmonary disease specialist. (Tr. 715). By Dr. Lloyd's order, a Salem sump — a tube threaded through the nose to the stomach —had previously been inserted into Mr. B. The Salem sump permitted the doctors and nurses to deliver medicine to Mr. B, to check the amount of fluids in his stomach, and to decompress his stomach if gastric residuals built up. (Tr. 721-22, 851-53). If gastric residuals built up in the stomach and were not promptly suctioned out, Mr. B risked aspiration pneumonia, which he had previously contracted. (Tr. 720).

At 11:00 a.m. on December 19, Dr. Albert Barroso, a gastroenterologist assisting Dr. Lloyd, issued a written order to begin tube feeding Mr. B. (Tr. 872; D. Ex. 1, tab 32). The written order said nothing about removing the Salem sump, which can be used as a feeding tube, (Tr. 272), or about inserting a different tube. At 4:00 p.m., without checking with any doctor, Wallace removed the Salem sump from Mr. B and replaced it with a small bore feeding tube. (Tr. 273-74). In the patient's record, Wallace wrote a "verbal order," a written statement that she had received an oral order from a doctor, to "place feeding tube and follow-up with X-ray." Wallace wrote the order to show that Dr. Nicola Hanania, a medical fellow in the MICU, had given the verbal order. (Tr. 273-74; D. Ex. 1, tab 32). Wallace signed her name next to the chart entry. (D. Ex. 1, tab 32).

At trial, Wallace admitted that Dr. Barroso, in his written order, had only ordered her to "begin tube feeding," not to replace the Salem sump with a small bore feeding tube. (Tr. 263-64). Wallace admitted that it was possible to use a Salem sump for feeding. (Tr. 272). Wallace admitted that, contrary to the written entry she made on Mr. B's chart, Dr. Hanania had not given her any verbal order to place a small bore feeding tube in the patient. (Tr. 388). Wallace also acknowledged that removing the Salem sump was not an emergency procedure, that there was time to ask a doctor before she proceeded, and that there were doctors...