United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 18-2467

___________________________

Dr. Jayaram Bharadwaj

 Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Mid Dakota Clinic; Dr. Robert Tanous; Dr. Shelly Seifert; Dr. Vijay Rao; Dr. 

Marvin Lein; Dr. Steven K. Hamar; Board of Directors, Mid Dakota Clinic, P.C.

 Defendants - Appellees

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of North Dakota - Bismarck 

____________

Submitted: October 16, 2019

Filed: April 3, 2020

____________

Before LOKEN, SHEPHERD, and STRAS, Circuit Judges. 

____________

STRAS, Circuit Judge. 

Dr. Jayaram Bharadwaj had trouble getting along with his coworkers. After 

being pushed out of his practice, he sued for racial discrimination and retaliation, 
-2- 

disability discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, and breach of fiduciary duty. 

The district court1 dismissed each of these claims on summary judgment. We affirm.

I. 

Dr. Bharadwaj, an oncologist born in India, was with Mid Dakota Clinic in 

Bismarck, North Dakota, for four-and-a-half years, the last two years as a 

shareholder. His tenure was rocky. He repeatedly quarreled with nurses and other 

doctors. Mid Dakota eventually became so concerned with his behavior that it sent 

him to Vanderbilt University for a fitness-to-practice evaluation. The evaluator did 

not question his ability to practice medicine but nevertheless recommended a threeweek treatment program aimed at resolving his interpersonal difficulties. 

Mid Dakota continued to consider its options while Dr. Bharadwaj attended 

the program. At a meeting with Mid Dakota’s legal counsel, at least three of the 

twelve oncology nurses complained about Dr. Bharadwaj’s behavior. In a memo to

Mid Dakota’s medical director summarizing the discussions at the meeting, counsel 

wrote: “the staff do not want to work with [him].” As it turned out, other doctors 

did not want to work with him either. 

Once Dr. Bharadwaj returned, events unfolded quickly. Mid Dakota’s board 

of directors suspended him. The CEO allegedly told him that the suspension was 

indefinite, that he would not be allowed to return to work under any circumstances, 

and that the clinic would make sure he lost his medical license if he fought it. A 

special shareholder meeting to decide his fate followed. He claims that, during the 

1

The Honorable Daniel L. Hovland, then Chief Judge, United States District 

Court for the District of North Dakota, now United States District Judge for the 

District of North Dakota. 
-3- 

meeting, board members tried to stack the vote against him by making false 

statements about his performance. He decided to resign rather than face a vote. 

Dr. Bharadwaj eventually sued Mid Dakota, its board of directors, its CEO, 

and some of its individual directors for discrimination under Title VII of the Civil 

Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act,

2 retaliation under Title VII and 

the False Claims Act, and breach of fiduciary duty under North Dakota law. The 

district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on each of these claims. 

II. 

We review the district court’s decision to grant summary judgment de novo.3

 

Tonelli v. United States, 60 F.3d 492, 494 (8th Cir. 1995). “Summary judgment is 

appropriate when the evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to the nonmoving 

party, shows no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled 

to judgment as a matter of law.” Phillips v. Mathews, 547 F.3d 905, 909 (8th Cir. 

2008) (citation omitted).

A.

We begin with Dr. Bharadwaj’s discrimination claims. He does not have

2

The disability-discrimination claim is based on the allegation that Mid 

Dakota “regarded” him as having a “mental impairment” and then discriminated 

against him. 42 U.S.C. § 12102(1)(A), (C).

3

Dr. Bharadwaj notes that parts of the district court’s order appear to have 

been pasted from Mid Dakota’s summary-judgment brief. Because our review is de 

novo, this has no bearing on our analysis. See Jensen v. Solvay Chems., Inc., 625 

F.3d 641, 651 (10th Cir. 2010). 
-4- 

direct evidence of discrimination,4 so we evaluate them under the McDonnell

Douglas burden-shifting framework. See Beasley v. Warren Unilube, Inc., 933 F.3d 

932, 937 (8th Cir. 2019) (Title VII); Olsen v. Capital Region Med. Ctr., 713 F.3d 

1149, 1153–54 (8th Cir. 2013) (ADA). Even if he has established a prima-facie 

case, Mid Dakota has offered a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its actions: 

his inability to get along with others. 

Dr. Bharadawaj argues that Mid Dakota’s reason was a pretext for 

discrimination. See Beasley, 933 F.3d at 938; EEOC v. Prod. Fabricators, Inc., 763 

F.3d 963, 970 (8th Cir. 2014). His evidence of pretext falls into three broad

categories, but in the end, none of it creates a triable issue of fact. 

The first category is shifting-explanations evidence. According to Dr. 

Bharadwaj, Mid Dakota gave varying explanations for its actions over time. 

Although this type of evidence, if it existed, could establish pretext, see Lake v. 

Yellow Transp., Inc., 596 F.3d 871, 874–75 (8th Cir. 2010), Mid Dakota never 

wavered from its view that his interpersonal difficulties were the central concern. 

To be sure, he had other problems too, but Mid Dakota never shifted its focus from 

his main one, even if it sometimes used different words to describe it.

The second category is false-explanations evidence. Dr. Bharadwaj says that 

Mid Dakota’s explanations, even if consistent, were false. “The falsity of a 

4

For the disability-discrimination claim, Dr. Bharadawaj claims to have direct 

evidence because he says that the president of Mid Dakota once said that he was 

“paranoid” and suffered from a “psychiatric illness.” But he also admits that she 

knew he did not have psychiatric issues, so there is no way her statements could be 

direct evidence of discrimination under a regarded-as-disabled theory. See Br. of 

Appellant at 25; see also Webb v. Mercy Hosp., 102 F.3d 958, 960 (8th Cir. 1996) 

(“An employer’s knowledge that an employee exhibits symptoms which may be 

associated with an impairment does not necessarily show the employer regarded the 

employee as disabled.” (emphasis added)). 
-5- 

nondiscriminatory explanation [can] support a finding of pretext,” Barber v. C1 

Truck Driver Training, LLC, 656 F.3d 782, 794 (8th Cir. 2011), but once again, his 

evidence falls short. He disputes a number of details about specific incidents with 

other employees, including who started them. But the evidence does not rebut Mid 

Dakota’s primary rationale for taking action: his inability to get along with others. 

Even his counsel conceded at oral argument that the evidence showed that he had 

difficulty in this area. Oral Arg. at 8:43–8:50 (“I don’t think that that’s unfair to say 

he had interpersonal difficulties with people there.”). If so, Mid Dakota’s 

explanation was not false, and it had the right to discipline him regardless of who 

was at fault in each incident. See Kiel v. Select Artificials, Inc., 169 F.3d 1131, 1136 

(8th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (“The employment-discrimination laws have not vested in 

the federal courts the authority to sit as super-personnel departments reviewing the 

wisdom or fairness of the business judgments made by employers, except to the 

extent that those judgments involve intentional discrimination.” (brackets and 

citation omitted)). 

The third category is others-were-treated-better evidence. He claims that Mid 

Dakota treated other, similarly situated doctors more favorably. This evidence fails 

for a different, more obvious reason. Dr. Bharadwaj cannot identify anyone else 

who “engaged in the same conduct without any mitigating or distinguishing 

circumstances.” Lindeman v. Saint Luke’s Hosp. of Kansas City, 899 F.3d 603, 606 

(8th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted). Although others had problems, as he points out,

none had them to the point that other doctors refused to work with them. 

Dr. Bharadawaj has not mustered sufficient evidence of pretext. So on these 

claims, he was not entitled to get past summary judgment.

B. 

Dr. Bharadwaj’s retaliation claims come next. These claims, brought under 

Title VII and the False Claims Act, allege that he was forced to resign for engaging 
-6- 

in statutorily protected activity. Under Title VII, he claims that his complaints about 

racially charged comments by the lead oncology nurse were the cause. And under 

the False Claims Act, the alleged cause was his decision to disclose the fraudulent 

billing practices of another doctor to clinic management. Once again, a lack of 

evidence dooms his claims, this time because there is no proof that either action was 

the reason Mid Dakota pushed him out.

On the first claim, he argues that Mid Dakota disciplined him for complaining 

about racial slurs that anyone would find offensive. The lead oncology nurse 

reportedly called him “Achmed the Terrorist” more than once and told him that no 

one could understand him because he “speaks Hindu.” After Dr. Bharadawaj 

reported the racial harassment to clinic administrators, he claims, Mid Dakota 

suspended him and later forced him to resign.

No matter how offensive the nurse’s comments may have been, Dr. 

Bharadwaj’s retaliation claim depends on Mid Dakota’s response to his reporting of 

them, rather than the content of the statements themselves.

5

 Specifically, Title VII’s 

anti-retaliation provision prohibits Mid Dakota from engaging in discrimination

“because [an employee] has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment 

practice by [Title VII].” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a) (emphasis added). One element of 

this type of claim is causation: any adverse employment action must have been

motivated by Mid Dakota’s “desire to retaliate” against him for reporting 

discriminatory and harassing behavior. Wright v. St. Vincent Health Sys., 730 F.3d 

5

Indeed, Dr. Bharadwaj has been clear that he is not raising a hostileworkplace or other similar claim based on the nurse’s comments. Reply Br. at 32–

33. Instead, he “recounts her comments to explain the basis for his complaints of 

race discrimination to Mid Dakota administrators,” which he says motivated the 

retaliation. Id. at 33.
-7- 

732, 737–38 (8th Cir. 2013) (quoting Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 

338, 352 (2013)).

Dr. Bharadwaj’s theory is that if Mid Dakota did not force him to resign 

because of his race or a disability, then perhaps it did so as retaliation for reporting 

the nurse’s comments. He has no direct evidence of retaliation, so the McDonnell 

Douglas burden-shifting framework is front and center here too. See Donathan v. 

Oakley Grain, Inc., 861 F.3d 735, 739 (8th Cir. 2017). Even if he can establish a 

prima-facie case, he once again lacks evidence of pretext. His primary evidence is 

proof of a so-called “pattern,” except his pattern consists of actions taken against 

only one other doctor. The doctor in question, Dr. Robert Roswick, complained in 

a letter that Dr. Bharadwaj was treated more harshly than others because of his race. 

It is true, as Dr. Bharadwaj argues, that board members admitted that they fired Dr. 

Roswick in response to his comments. A jury later awarded Dr. Roswick more than 

one million dollars in damages on his own retaliation claim.

Still, Dr. Bharadwaj cannot use Dr. Roswick’s strong retaliation claim to 

bootstrap his weak one. To be sure, we sometimes allow plaintiffs to introduce 

evidence of discrimination against other employees to bolster their own claims. See, 

e.g., Dindinger v. Allsteel, Inc., 853 F.3d 414, 424 (8th Cir. 2017). But the question 

here is not admissibility, but rather whether the evidence could lead a reasonable 

jury to conclude that Mid Dakota’s strong legitimate nondiscriminatory justification 

for its actions was a pretext for retaliation. See Donathan, 861 F.3d at 739–40

(explaining that on a “fully developed summary judgment record,” the plaintiff’s 

obligation to demonstrate pretext “merges” with the requirement to show that “an 

impermissible retaliatory motive was the ‘but-for cause’ of the adverse employment 

action”). In our view, the answer is no.

The claims are just too different for a reasonable jury to conclude otherwise 

without resorting to speculation. Dr. Roswick wrote a letter to clinic management 

complaining about what he perceived to be unfair treatment of a minority colleague. 
-8- 

Dr. Bharadwaj complained about something different: racial slurs that another 

employee directed at him. Even if Mid Dakota retaliated against Dr. Roswick for 

writing the letter, this does not mean that it also retaliated against Dr. Bharadwaj for 

complaining about something else. See Barber, 656 F.3d at 801 (explaining that to 

survive summary judgment, the plaintiff must offer “sufficient probative evidence 

[that] would permit a finding in [his] favor based on more than mere speculation, 

conjecture, or fantasy” (alterations in original) (citation omitted)). Retaliation 

against one employee is insufficient, standing alone, to prove retaliation against 

another employee when the underlying activity is so different. Cf. id. at 795 

(explaining that another employee’s allegation of discrimination is insufficient, 

standing alone, to show pretext). And Dr. Bharadwaj points to nothing more in 

support of his Title VII retaliation claim.

Dr. Bharadwaj does not have much support for his other retaliation claim 

either. The causation standard under the False Claims Act is even more stringent: 

“the retaliation [must be] motivated solely by . . . protected activity.” Wilkins v. St. 

Louis Hous. Auth., 314 F.3d 927, 932–33 (8th Cir. 2002) (emphasis added). There 

is simply no evidence, direct or otherwise, that his decision to report the allegedly 

fraudulent billing practices of a colleague caused—much less solely caused—Mid 

Dakota to force him out. 

C. 

We have one final claim to consider, this one under state law. According to 

the North Dakota Business Corporation Act, a court may order equitable relief to 

prevent the oppression of minority shareholders. It provides, in relevant part, as 

follows: 

2. A court may grant any equitable relief it deems just and 

reasonable in the circumstances[:]

. . .
-9- 

b. In an action by a shareholder when it is established that:

. . . 

(2) The directors or those in control of the corporation 

have acted fraudulently or illegally toward one or more 

shareholders in their capacities as shareholders or 

directors of any corporation or as officers or employees of 

a closely held corporation; [or]

(3) The directors or those in control of the corporation 

have acted in a manner unfairly prejudicial toward one or 

more shareholders in their capacities as shareholders or 

directors of a corporation that is not a publicly held 

corporation or as officers or employees of a closely held 

corporation;

. . . 

N.D. Cent. Code § 10-19.1-115(2) (emphasis added). 

It is undisputed that Mid Dakota is not a closely held corporation, see id. § 10-

19.1-01(11), so the statute provides no protection to Dr. Bharadwaj in his capacity 

as an employee. Cf. Kortum v. Johnson, 755 N.W.2d 432 (N.D. 2008) (analyzing a 

claim brought by an employee of a closely held corporation). Rather, it would allow 

for equitable relief only if “those in control of” Mid Dakota have acted “fraudulently 

or illegally” or “in a manner unfairly prejudicial” toward him in his “capacit[y] as

[a] shareholder[].” N.D. Cent. Code § 10-19.1-115(2). 

Yet the allegedly oppressive actions Dr. Bharadwaj has identified were all 

taken against him in his capacity as an employee. He is trying to raise a wrongfuldischarge claim under the guise of a shareholder-oppression action, essentially

because he happens to be a shareholder too. The problem, of course, is that, under 

North Dakota law, he could not have brought a wrongful-discharge claim directly 

because he is an at-will employee. See Jose v. Norwest Bank N.D., N.A., 599 N.W.2d 

293, 298 (N.D. 1999) (explaining that an employer can generally terminate an atwill employee “with or without cause,” unless doing so would violate public policy). 

He cannot bring one indirectly as a shareholder either.
-10- 

III. 

We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.

______________________________