Harrow v. St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital

11-1680-cv
Harrow v. St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER
FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT'S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL
APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION "SUMMARY ORDER"). A PARTY
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY
COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit, held at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan
United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, in the City of New
York, on the 13th day of June, two thousand twelve.
PRESENT:
RALPH K. WINTER,
DENNY CHIN,
CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY,
Circuit Judges.
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DOLORES HARROW,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
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ST. LUKE'S CORNWALL HOSPITAL,
Defendant-Appellee.
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FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: STEPHEN BERGSTEIN, Bergstein &
Ullrich, LLP, Chester, New York
(Christopher D. Watkins, Sussman &
Watkins, Goshen, New York, on the
brief).
FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE: JOHN KEIL (Adam Michael Harris, on
the brief), Collazo Florentino &
Keil LLP, New York, New York.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District
Court for the Southern District of New York (Seibel, J.).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,
AND DECREED that the judgment is AFFIRMED.
Plaintiff-appellant Dolores Harrow appeals from the
district court's judgment of March 29, 2011. Judgment was
entered pursuant to the district court's decision of March 28,
2011, granting summary judgment in favor of defendant St. Luke's
Cornwall Hospital (the "Hospital") and dismissing Harrow's claims
under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (codified as
amended in 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17), 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and
the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law §§ 290, 296.
We review the award of summary judgment de novo. See
Gorzynski v. JetBlue Airways Corp., 596 F.3d 93, 101 (2d Cir.
2010). We have reviewed the record and proceedings below, and we
affirm for substantially the reasons set forth by the district
court in its thorough and carefully-considered decision.
We assume the parties' familiarity with the facts and
procedural history of the case and the issues presented for
review. Construed in the light most favorable to Harrow, see
Schiano v. Quality Payroll Sys., Inc., 445 F.3d 597, 603 (2d Cir.
2006), the facts before the district court below were as follows:
On June 4, 2008, Harrow was involved in an incident
with a patient, which resulted in a complaint about Harrow from
the patient's family. Directly following this incident, the
patient's husband -- outside of Harrow's hearing -- made a racist
remark about Harrow. Harrow's employment was terminated on June
9, 2008. Although this complaint was a precipitating factor in
her discharge, Harrow had a long prior history of disciplinary
problems. The Hospital received over a dozen patient complaints
about her from 2001 to 2008, including six in 2007 and 2008. The
Hospital attempted to address these and other performance
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problems. For example, the Hospital verbally counseled Harrow
after receiving multiple complaints about her interactions with
patients; removed a patient from her care after she handled the
patient roughly; issued a written warning for her refusal to
bring a patient coffee; suspended her from the remainder of her
shift and issued a written warning for her extensive absences and
disruptive behavior; and issued yet another written warning for a
comment, made in front of a doctor, that "orthopedic patients are
too much work" and that the orthopedic floor was "too heavy."
Harrow has not argued that any of these prior disciplinary
actions were discriminatory.
Even assuming that the patient's husband made a racist
statement about Harrow during the June 4, 2008, incident, there
is nothing in the record to suggest that the Hospital fired her
to accommodate the husband's purported racism. See Silver v. N.
Shore Univ. Hosp., 490 F. Supp. 2d 354, 365 (S.D.N.Y. 2007)
(citing Wigginess Inc. v. Fruchtman, 482 F. Supp. 681, 692
(S.D.N.Y. 1979) ("Employers may not discriminate on the basis of
their customers' preferences.")). In fact, the complaint about
Harrow was made not by the husband, but by the patient's son in a
subsequent telephone call. Moreover, hospital officials never
even spoke with the patient's husband about the events of June 4.
No reasonable juror could have found that the husband's purported
racism was a factor in the Hospital's decision to terminate
Harrow's employment. Indeed, the Hospital hired an African-
American woman to fill Harrow's position. A reasonable jury
could only find that the Hospital fired Harrow for a legitimate,
nondiscriminatory reason: her long history of poor performance.
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We have considered all of Harrow's remaining arguments
and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of
the district court is hereby AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT:
CATHERINE O'HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK
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