Date: 09-06-2024

Case Style:

Matthew Byrnes, M.C. v. St. Catherine Hospital, et al.

Case Number: 2:21-cv-02086

Judge: Daniel D. Crabtree

Court: United States District Court for the District of Kansas (Wyandotte County)

Plaintiff's Attorney:

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Defendant's Attorney: Jason D. Stitt, Lisa Martin, Richard A. Olmstead

Description:

Kansas City, Kansas civil rights job discrimination lawyers represented the Plaintiff.

People get fired from their jobs for many reasons, or, sometimes, for no reason at all. And if the person's an at-will employee, that's just fine, the law says. Just fine, that is, as long as his employer didn't fire him for discriminatory or retaliatory reasons. Plaintiff Dr. Matthew Byrnes got fired in February 2020. He had worked as a surgeon and intensivist for St. Catherine Hospital (SCH) in Garden City, Kansas, since 2012. And he was their Chief Medical Officer (CMO) from 2013 to 2019. Then, SCH and Centura-who managed SCH-fired him without cause. Plaintiff was an at-will employee under his employment agreement. So, SCH and Centura didn't need a reason to fire him. And the court isn't here to decide if firing him was a good call-justified or unjustified, fair or not. They didn't need a reason at all, much less a good or fair one. Instead, the outcome of defendants' summary judgment motion (Doc. 172) turns solely on whether Centura fired plaintiff for discriminatory or retaliatory reasons.

Plaintiff claims they did. He contends that defendants St. Catherine Hospital and Centura Health Corporation wanted him out because of his complaints about a fellow doctor. Plaintiff had accused Dr. Kurt Kessler of sexual harassment and other standard-of-care shortcomings. He also claims that-because of these complaints against Dr. Kessler-defendants viewed him as mentally unstable. So, he asserts, this perceived impairment drove their desire to let him go. What's more, even after they got rid of him, plaintiff claims that defendants continued to retaliate against him by unfairly reporting four of his medical cases to the Kansas Board of Healing Arts (KBHA).

Defendants, for their part, say they didn't fire plaintiff for retaliatory or discriminatory reasons. Instead, they rely on patient care concerns and issues with peer review in his role as CMO. And they say they never perceived plaintiff as impaired, nor was their KBHA reporting process retaliatory.

And so, defendants have filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. The court grants the motion, concluding that plaintiff has failed to present a triable issue on his federal claims of Title VII retaliation, ADA retaliation, or ADA discrimination. In a nutshell, plaintiff has failed to adduce evidence that defendants' reasons for terminating his employment were pretext for retaliation. Nor has he shown facts sufficient to support an inference that defendants perceived him as impaired. And he fails to demonstrate-such that a reasonable juror could infer-a causal connection between defendants' KBHA reporting processes and his protected activity. With the federal claims resolved, the court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's state law claims and thus dismisses those state law claims without prejudice.

Outcome: Defendant's motion for summary judgment granted.

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