Neelam Uppal v. Hospital Corporation of America , 482 F. App'x 394 ( 2012 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 11-13614 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
Non-Argument Calendar JUNE 13, 2012
________________________ JOHN LEY
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 8:09-cv-00634-VMC-TBM
NEELAM UPPAL,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant,
versus
HOSPITAL CORPORATION OF AMERICA,
d.b.a.
HCA Inc.,
EDWARD WHITE HOSPITAL,
LARGO MEDICAL CENTER,
GALENCARE, INC.,
d.b.a.
Northside Hospital & Tampa
Bay Heart Institute,
PALMS OF PASADENA HOSPITAL, LP,
d.b.a.
Palms of Pasadena Hospital,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllDefendants - Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(June 13, 2012)
Before MARTIN, JORDAN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Neelam Uppal, a woman of Indian origin, appeals the district court’s
dismissal of her Third Amended Complaint for failure to state a claim under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) against Hospital Corporation of America,
Edward White Hospital, Largo Medical Center, Northside Hospital & Tampa Bay
Institute, and Palms of Pasadena Hospital, LP.
Dr. Uppal was “appointed as an attending physician and was given
privileges to admit and treat patients” at the defendant medical centers. Over the
course of her employment with the hospitals, Dr. Uppal was subjected to a number
of disciplinary actions. Based on these adverse employment actions, Dr. Uppal
filed claims under Title VII and the Florida Civil Rights Act in district court. The
district court dismissed Dr. Uppal’s Title VII claims for failure to sufficiently
plead her claims pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a) and 10(b), and
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it dismissed her state law claims with prejudice pursuant to the immunity Florida
law grants to matters arising out of hospital peer review processes. See Fla. Stat.
§ 395.0191(7)–(8). Dr. Uppal filed a Second Amended Complaint, and then
sought leave to amend, which the district court granted. She ultimately filed a
Third Amended Complaint, alleging claims under Title VII for discrimination on
account of gender, race and national origin, hostile work environment, and
retaliation for engaging in protected conduct. The district court dismissed with
prejudice this complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure
to plead sufficient facts to state Title VII claims for discrimination, hostile work
environment, and retaliation. On appeal, Uppal argues that she pleaded sufficient
facts in her Third Amended Complaint to state each of her Title VII claims, and
that Florida’s peer review immunity statute does not bar her state law
discrimination claims. We address each claim in turn.
I.
We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for failure to
state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). Edwards v. Prime, Inc., 602 F.3d 1276, 1291
(11th Cir. 2010).
In a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, we take the factual allegations as true;
however, we are not “required to accept the labels and legal conclusions in the
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complaint as true.” Id. at 1291. Instead, a complaint must plead “factual content
that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable
for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct.
1937, 1949 (2009). As such, a district court may “insist upon some specificity in
[the] pleading before allowing a potentially massive factual controversy to
proceed.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 558, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1967
(2007) (quotation marks omitted).
II.
Turning first to Dr. Uppal’s employment discrimination claim, Title VII
“prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, . . . sex, or national
origin.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Disparate treatment can constitute illegal
discrimination when “an employer has treated a particular person less favorably
than others because of a protected trait.” Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, __,
129 S. Ct. 2658, 2672 (2009) (quotation marks and alterations omitted). Although
a plaintiff need not satisfy the McDonnell Douglas1 framework at the pleading
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McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S. Ct. 1817 (1973). Under this
framework, the plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case, which creates a presumption of
unlawful discrimination against the employee. The employer may then rebut that presumption
with legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the adverse employment actions. The employee
must then proffer sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact that the
defendant’s articulated reasons are pretextual. See Crawford v. Carroll, 529 F.3d 961, 976 (11th
Cir. 2008).
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stage in order to state a claim for disparate treatment, the “ordinary rules for
assessing the sufficiency of a complaint [still] apply.” Swierkiewicz v. Sorema
N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 511, 122 S. Ct. 992, 997 (2002); see also Davis v. Coca-Cola
Bottling Co. Consol., 516 F.3d 955, 974 (11th Cir. 2008) (“Although a Title VII
complaint need not allege facts sufficient to make out a classic McDonnell
Douglas prima facie case, it must provide enough factual matter (taken as true) to
suggest intentional race discrimination.”) (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Here, Dr. Uppal has stated multiple claims for employment discrimination
based solely on the repeated allegation that “[o]ther similarly situated employees
outside Plaintiff’s protected classes” engaged in similar misconduct, but were not
disciplined. Indeed, this allegation recites a crucial element of a prima facie Title
VII case where the alleged discrimination is based solely on an employer’s
disparate treatment of employee misconduct. See, e.g., Burke-Fowler v. Orange
Cnty, Fla., 447 F.3d 1319, 1323 (11th Cir. 2006). However, Dr. Uppal never once
supplements these allegations of disparate treatment with any factual detail, such
as even a brief description of how the alleged comparator employees were outside
of her protected class. This being the case, Dr. Uppal has alleged no facts to
support that gender, race or national origin played any role in the disparate
treatment. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S. Ct. at 1949 (“Threadbare recitals of
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the elements of a cause of action . . . do not suffice.”). Therefore, the district court
did not err in dismissing Dr. Uppal’s employment discrimination claim.
III.
Uppal has also asserted a hostile work environment claim against each of
the defendant medical centers. Discriminatory conduct that is “so severe or
pervasive that it create[s] a work environment abusive to employees because of
their race, gender, religion, or national origin offends Title VII’s broad rule of
workplace equality.” Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 22, 114 S. Ct. 367,
371 (1993). Dr. Uppal alleged that “Defendants, by and through Plaintiff’s
supervisors created and perpetuated a hostile work environment . . . on the basis of
her gender, race, national origin and retaliation,” and that this “hostile work
environment was severe and pervasive.” To the extent that this hostile work
environment claim stems from the same allegations underlying Dr. Uppal’s
employment discrimination claim, as we noted above, she has failed to allege
sufficient facts suggesting that gender, race or national origin played any part in
the adverse employment actions. This necessarily defeats any allegation that the
hostile work environment was on account of protected characteristics.
Dr. Uppal also alleged a single instance of sexual harassment at Largo
Medical Center, in which her supervisor “privately met with [her], sat down next
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to [her] and placed his arm around her in an unwelcomed sexual manner.”
However, this single incident of harassing conduct cannot support a hostile work
environment claim. Miller v. Kenworth of Dotham, Inc., 277 F.3d 1269, 1276
(11th Cir. 2002) (requiring conduct that is severe or pervasive); see also Nat’l R.R.
Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 115, 122 S. Ct. 2061, 2073 (2002).
Therefore, the district court properly dismissed Dr. Uppal’s hostile work
environment claim.
IV.
Turning finally to Dr. Uppal’s retaliation claim, Title VII makes it unlawful
“for an employer to discriminate against any of his employees . . . because [she]
has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice” under Title VII.
42 U.S.C. § 2000-3(a). Retaliation under Title VII occurs when an employee
engages in protected activity, and suffers an adverse employment action that is
causally related to that activity. See Harper v. Blockbuster Entm’t Corp., 139 F.3d
1385, 1388 (11th Cir. 1998). In terms of causation, a plaintiff must show that the
decision-maker was aware of the protected conduct. Shannon v. Bellsouth
Telecomms., Inc., 292 F.3d 712, 716 (11th Cir. 2002).
On appeal, Dr. Uppal argues that she pleaded sufficient facts to support her
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retaliation claim against Palms of Pasadena,2 because she lost her emergency room
privileges shortly after complaining about discrimination. Specifically, in July
2008, she wrote to the CEO of Palms of Pasadena complaining of discrimination
and harassment. However, according to her complaint, Dr. Uppal had already lost
her emergency room (ER) privileges prior to sending the July 2008 letter.
Therefore, this initial loss of ER privileges cannot be causally related to Dr.
Uppal’s July 2008 letter.
Dr. Uppal further alleges that following her July 2008 letter to the CEO of
Palms of Pasadena, the hospital held a hearing on the issues relating to her ER
practice. The hearing committee recommended that Dr. Uppal be “re-appointed
and trained on the computer.” But the hospital never sent her a copy of that
decision, and in late February 2009, Dr. Uppal “was deemed as having ‘voluntarily
resigned’ by Defendant.” Crucially, these allegations establish no causal
relationship between the July 2008 letter that Dr. Uppal sent to the CEO, and the
adverse employment actions taken by the hearing committee and the “Defendant”
in early 2009. Specifically, Dr. Uppal does not allege that the hearing committee
2
Dr. Uppal apparently abandons her retaliation claims against the other defendant
medical centers because she only cites to the portion of the complaint concerning Palms of
Pasadena. See Wilkerson v. Grinnell Corp., 270 F.3d 1314, 1322 (11th Cir. 2001) (holding that
issue not raised in initial brief is deemed waived).
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was aware of the letter that she sent to the CEO. See Shannon, 292 F.3d at 716.
Neither does she allege that the decision-maker who deemed her to have
voluntarily resigned was aware of the letter, thus failing to allege any kind of
causal relationship between the protected conduct and the adverse employment
action. See id. This being the case, Dr. Uppal has pleaded no facts to support her
retaliation claim, and the district court’s dismissal of that claim was proper.
V.
With regard to Dr. Uppal’s state law claims, she argues that the immunity
that Florida law grants to a hospital’s peer review process does not apply to her
state law claims. However, we need not reach this issue.
We have held that “decisions construing Title VII are applicable when
considering claims under the Florida Civil Rights Act, because the Florida Act
was patterned after Title VII.” Harper, 139 F.3d at 1387. Here, Dr. Uppal only
appeals the dismissal of her state law discrimination claims under the Florida Civil
Rights Act, Fla. Stat. § 760.01 et seq. Given that her claims under the Florida
Civil Rights Act mirror her Title VII claims for employment discrimination,
hostile work environment, and retaliation, Dr. Uppal’s state law discrimination
claims rise and fall with her Title VII claims. See id.VI.
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For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Dr. Uppal’s
claims.
AFFIRMED.
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