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Sanchez v. Children's Hospital and Health Center9/14/2005
mination, effective June 28, 2002, in a meeting on June 17, 2002, at which Children's explained her position was being eliminated as part of the reduction in force. Sanchez was the only person under Niedzwiecki's supervision who was terminated in the specific reduction in force that took place in June 2002. At the time, she was 61 years old and nine months from retirement eligibility.
Sanchez's attempts to find a new job at Children's after her termination are also central to this case. According to Children's policy, employees who are terminated in a reduction in force but obtain a new position at Children's within two years of the date of termination maintain seniority with respect to their benefits, including retirement vesting, as if they had never been terminated. Children's assigned a recruiter to help Sanchez find a new internal position. Sanchez also had access to internal job openings posted on Children's Internet site. However, Sanchez was aware of Children's policy making it the responsibility of the employee to locate and apply for available positions.
In June and July 2002, Sanchez interviewed for two internal positions and also applied for a position in the chaplaincy department, but was not granted an interview. Sanchez admitted that after not being hired for the position in the chaplaincy department she "gave up" on finding another position and did not submit any further applications after July 2, 2002.
Children's explained the reasons Sanchez was not selected for the position in the chaplaincy department. A declaration submitted by the chaplain explained that the desired qualifications for the chaplaincy department position included experience communicating with bereaved families, and further, that the position was part time. However, Sanchez had no bereavement experience, and Sanchez admitted that she was looking for a full-time position and would accept a part-time position on a temporary basis only. Instead of hiring Sanchez, the chaplain filled the position with an internal candidate who was over 50 years old, had attended a master of divinity program and had three years of clinical education in pastoral education and counseling.
So that she would not lose her retirement benefits despite not having the length of employment necessary to obtain employer matching contributions, Sanchez applied on October 8, 2002, for an "Exception to Policy." Children's informed Sanchez on November 4, 2002, that it would not make an exception, stating, "The organization has made a decision to not approve any exception to policy" regarding its matching of the employee's retirement contribution.
Also relevant to our analysis is the centralization process that occurred at Children's several months after Sanchez was terminated, which again shifted the assignment of the secretarial work that had been performed by Sanchez. Nine months after Sanchez was terminated, Children's undertook a centralization process in which the chaplaincy, translation, social services, child life, rehabilitation team, registered dietician and patient complaints functions were all centralized under a newly appointed director of the Patient and Family Services department. As a result of the centralization, some of the roles that had been assigned to other departments when Sanchez's position was eliminated appear to have been brought back together again to be performed - along with other duties - by a single secretary hired by the newly appointed director in March 2003. The secretary hired for the position was Libia Ortega, who was 23 years old. Sanchez did not apply for the position although it was publicly posted, as she had given up her internal job search long before then - in July 2
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