Why Healthcare Employers Should Build An Effective Documentation Trail To Reduce Legal Exposure

Employment disputes are stressful, disruptive, and expensive. This is especially true when they result in litigation. While disputes cannot be avoided entirely, employers can manage them in a way that reduces the likelihood of litigation. They also can implement effective measures to help reduce the costs of litigation and significantly improve the likelihood of favorable outcomes.

Some recent healthcare cases illustrate this point, showing how consistent practices can create a strong evidence trail that benefits the employer. In both cases, disgruntled former employees insisted that they had suffered illegal discrimination and retaliation. They also claimed that their hospital employers lied about the "true reasons" for terminating their employment. In both cases, however, the hospitals prevailed through the United States Courts of Appeal, demonstrating that their articulated reasons for terminating the employees were both truthful and nondiscriminatory.

In Ellison v. St. Joseph's/Candler Health Sys., Inc. (SJC), a patient care technician (Naomi Ellison) was fired just two weeks after being involved in an altercation with a nurse supervisor, who allegedly referred to Ellison by a racial slur. The plaintiff claimed that the accused supervisor had a habit of using such offensive language. Claiming discrimination and retaliation, she identified another employee who also had been fired after complaining about the same nurse supervisor's use of the same racial slur. The court later referred to these circumstances as "troubling." So, the facts hardly seemed to be lining up favorably for the hospital. Nevertheless, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal found in favor of the hospital, holding that SJC had still established a "manifestly reasonable basis" for firing Ellison.

How did the hospital do it? After Ellison reported her altercation with the supervisor, it promptly conducted a thorough investigation, which revealed the existence of multiple complaints by both patients and coworkers about Ellison's disrespectful and rude behavior, one instance of which apparently led to her dust-up with the nurse supervisor. The investigation also identified several reports of Ellison mistreating patients. And it was important that the decision maker in Ellison's termination was not the same person who was involved in the other instance of alleged retaliation after complaining about the same supervisor.

Thus, despite Ellison's allegations and the fact that her...