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Date: 06-25-2024
Case Style:
Tulsa Ambulatory Procedure Center, et al. v. Todd Olmstead v. Dr. Jayen Patel
Case Number:
Judge: Rebecca Nightingale
Court: District Court Tulsa County, Oklahoma
Plaintiff's Attorney:
Defendant's Attorney:
Description:
Tulsa, Oklahoma, employment law lawyers represented the parties in a contract dispute.
Medical providers sued a former employee for breach of an employment agreement. Employee filed counterclaims alleging he was owed unpaid wages and bonuses. Providers filed an answer to the counterclaims, raising "failure to state a claim" as the sole affirmative defense. After nearly four-years of litigation, providers attempted to raise, for the first time, that the contract was illegal and therefore void as a matter of law.
Dr. Jayen Patel (Dr. Patel) is one of the principal owners of Tulsa Ambulatory Procedure Center, LLC (TAP), Oklahoma Pain & Wellness (OPW), and Precision Analysis Laboratory (PAL).1 These entities were all housed in the same location and were interchangeably referred to by Dr. Patel and Olmstead as TAP, "the company," or "the center."2 On January 28, 2015, Dr. Patel sent a letter to his brother-in-law, Todd Olmstead (Olmstead), extending an employment offer with his medical groups in Tulsa.3 The job proposal guaranteed Olmstead a base salary of $85,000 along with a performance bonus paid per month "base [sic] on new referrals to the center as well as urine analysis to the partner lab."4 Dr. Patel's proposal did not specify the amount of any bonus, only that it would be a "performance bonus paid per month."5 Olmstea
Outcome: The lower court issued an order finding providers had waived the affirmative defense, thus precluding its use as shield from liability. Following a trial on the merits, the trial judge determined providers had breached the employment agreement and issued a money judgment of $387,618.36 in favor of employee. Providers appealed and the Court of Civil Appeals reversed, concluding that refusal to consider providers' claim of illegality was an abuse of discretion. We granted certiorari and now hold the trial judge did not abuse her discretion in striking the Plaintiffs/Appellants' last-minute effort to raise a new affirmative defense.
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Defendant's Experts:
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