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Olive v. Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp.3/9/2000
JUDGMENT VACATED; FINAL JUDGMENT FOR APPELLANTS
DATE OF JOURNALIZATION
A jury awarded plaintiff Mary Ann Olive damages in this age discrimination and implied contract action against her employer, Columbia/HealthCare Corporation of Northern Ohio, the predecessor company to St. Vincent Charity Hospital (collectively referred to as the hospital ) where plaintiff worked as a head nurse before being terminated. In this appeal, the hospital claims the court erred by failing to direct verdicts, failing to grant a new trial, and by failing to correct numerous errors occurring at trial.
Our recitation of the facts is guided by the principle that we must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the party in favor of whom the jury returned verdicts. Osler v. Lorain (1986), 28 Ohio St. 3d 345, 347. Plaintiff, a registered nurse, began working at the not-for-profit hospital in 1973 (in 1995, the hospital ended its not-for-profit status when it merged with a large national health care organization). Over the years, she performed very competently and assumed positions with greater authority, eventually being named head nurse of the medical intensive care unit and the hemodialysis unit. These units were known in the hospital as 2-A. In addition to her duties as head nurse, she became the point person for the hospital's implementation of a computer program written to improve the efficiency of the intensive care unit. During her time with the hospital, her performance reviews were exemplary and contained no written criticisms of her work, other than notations that she should strive to improve her interpersonal skills.
In January 1995, the hospital created a cardiac intervention unit by merging the coronary care unit and the medical step down units. Plaintiff assumed management of the combined units along with her previously assigned job of running 2-A. Many members of the staff had difficulty adapting to the merged units, and the evidence fairly showed there were significant growing pains associated with the newly merged unit. Tensions ran high and tempers sometimes flared. There were criticisms by some doctors that nurses were not performing their tasks in a satisfactory manner. At least two doctors threatened to stop sending their patients to the cardiac intervention unit.
As the nurse in charge of the unit, plaintiff found herself at the center of the turmoil. Some nurses complained plaintiff had been irritable and unapproachable, and she did not welcome any input from her nurses. Some witnesses said plaintiff would have fits of anger where she threw papers and pens. One doctor said he heard plaintiff say, fuck this unit * * * I can't stand this fucking job. By her own admission, plaintiff agreed the merger of the units did not go smoothly and she admitted her direct supervisor had told her she could be unapproachable during times of stress.
None of these shortcomings, however, were listed in plaintiff's performance reviews. Plaintiff's supervisor stated that she counseled plaintiff several times about her conduct toward the staff, but plaintiff did not recall any of this. It appears the
counseling did not have an element of formality to it in the sense that it constituted direct disciplinary action.
In December 1996, plaintiff's supervisor made the decision to terminate plaintiff, citing plaintiff's continued inability to adapt to the changes in the merged units, manifested by her inability or refusal to communicate better with the nurses under her supervision. At the time of her termination, plaintiff was forty-nine years old.
Plaintiff filed this age and implied contract action against th
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