Opinion ID: 1224256
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Chijide's Employment at Maniilaq

Text: When Chijide began working for Maniilaq, Dr. Janette Shackles was also a staff physician at the medical center. Soon thereafter, however, Shackles became the clinical director of the medical center, a position in which she supervised Chijide. Chijide began to experience difficulties working with Shackles. In February 1992 Chijide sent a memorandum to Shackles entitled Benign Neglect and Failure to Communicate. She complained that [f]or the past several months, Shackles had repeatedly kept her uninformed about the dates and times of certain vital meetings involving medical staff and listed meetings that she had missed as a result of Shackles's benign neglect. Shackles responded to Chijide's memorandum, explaining the circumstances surrounding the missed meetings and noting that [w]e have a serious communication problem and you are very much a part of it.... I would like to meet with you and resolve this problem as soon as possible. Please let me know when you[`re] ready to talk. Chijide did not respond to Shackles's invitation to discuss their communication problems. Through a memorandum to Maniilaq's president, Chijide filed a grievance against Shackles in May 1992, charging that she had repeatedly received discriminatory and unfair treatment from [her]. Chijide alleged that Shackles had failed to inform her of important meetings, had unfairly denied her leave, and had purposely assigned her an unreasonable work schedule. In June, Jan Harris, Maniilaq's interim president, replied to Chijide's grievance. She found no conscious intent on Shackles's part to exclude Chijide from meetings and no apparent scheduling bias against her. She also found that Chijide was not being denied leave in a discriminatory manner. To address Chijide's concerns, however, Harris decided that staff would receive more formal notice of meetings and that physician coverage would be evaluated. Harris concluded by informing Chijide that if she accepted her resolution of the grievance by signing the reply, it would be considered closed. Chijide neither signed Harris's reply to indicate that she accepted the grievance resolution nor appealed Harris's decision. Chijide filed a second grievance against Shackles in November 1992. She claimed that her previous grievance was ineptly handled and doomed from the start, and that since the earlier grievance her relationship with Shackles ha[d] gone from bad to worse. She also described several examples of Shackles's alleged discriminatory treatment. Frank A. Kramer, the hospital administrator, replied to this grievance in December. He did not find anything inappropriate in Shackles's conduct as described by Chijide and found no conscious effort by Shackles to exclude Chijide from meetings or assignments. Observing that the grievance appeared to stem from miscommunication between Shackles and Chijide, he recommended first, that the medical staff discuss how to best disseminate information in the hospital, and second, that Chijide and Shackles establish an open line of communication. In a letter to Suzy Erlich, president of Maniilaq, Chijide appealed Kramer's grievance resolution, charging that it was totally unacceptable and thus, accomplished nothing. Chijide received no response to the letter for several months. In March 1993 Kramer gave Chijide the paperwork with which to pursue her grievance further, but she declined to do so. Chijide later explained in a deposition why she decided not to pursue the grievance: it was apparent to me ... that the process did not work and it appeared to me it was a corrupt process, if they did not like you that they were not going to process your grievance appropriately. In March 1993 Shackles gave Chijide a written reprimand for willfully disobeying a directive. This memorandum was based on Shackles's charge that Chijide had inappropriately refused to make a scheduled clinical visit to the village of Kiana, claiming that it was too cold for travel when, in fact, the weather was suitable for travel. Chijide wrote to Kramer on March 23, asserting that the reprimand was unjustified and requesting that it be removed from her file. Kramer treated Chijide's letter to him as a grievance, which he resolved by finding that the reprimand was proper. Chijide did not pursue this grievance further. On July 6, 1993, Chijide notified Maniilaq that she wished to renew her contract. On July 9 Shackles wrote a letter to Maniilaq's director of personnel, Carolyn Smith, in which she discussed the persistent hardships experienced in working with Chijide and requested that Maniilaq not renew Chijide's contract. In a letter dated July 30, Maniilaq notified Chijide that it would not be renewing her contract. Chijide received this letter on August 2. She left Maniilaq when her contract ended, on September 30, 1993.