Opinion ID: 3159386
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dr. Morman’s Gender-Discrimination Claim

Text: As a threshold matter, we must determine the nature of Dr. Morman’s sole claim—a gender-based equal-protection claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. In short, she supports this claim by contending that CCMH and the individual defendants failed to provide her with the same employment benefits provided to the three PROS male orthopedic surgeons later employed by CCMH. As she did in the district court, Dr. Morman rests her claim not on disparate impact, but on disparate treatment. Disparate treatment is intentional discrimination, while disparate impact involves “practices that are not intended to discriminate but in fact have a disproportionately adverse effect on [the protected class].” Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, 577 (2009). In her complaint, Dr. Morman alleges that all “conduct was performed knowingly, intentionally and maliciously to deprive Dr. Morman of her rights under the United States Constitution.” Appellant’s App. vol. 1 at 23. She also claims that “the acts of the individual defendants alleged in this Complaint constituted an official policy or custom of CCMH and/or deliberate indifference on the part of CCMH.” Id. But, as the district court determined, Dr. Morman’s allegation that the defendants acted under a custom or policy is a legal conclusion unsupported by any of her 10 factual allegations. The Supreme Court explained in Iqbal that “a court considering a motion to dismiss can choose to begin by identifying pleadings that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth.” 556 U.S. at 679. We therefore agree with the district court that we need not accept this allegation as true. She also abandoned the policy argument when she failed to argue it in response to the motion to dismiss, and she does not assert this argument on appeal. Thus, like the district court, we will evaluate her claim within the disparate-treatment framework. To prove an equal-protection claim based on disparate treatment, a plaintiff must provide either direct evidence of discrimination or prevail under the burdenshifting framework of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1972).5 Khalik, 671 F.3d at 1192. Under McDonnell Douglas, the plaintiff must first prove a prima facie case of discrimination. Id. If she does so, then the burden “shifts to the defendant to produce a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the adverse employment action.” Id. If the defendant provides such a reason, “the burden then shifts back to the plaintiff to show that the plaintiff’s protected status was a determinative factor in the employment decision or that the employer’s explanation is pretext.” Id. 5 “[T]he elements of a plaintiff’s case are the same, based on the disparate treatment elements outlined in McDonnell Douglas, whether that case is brought under §§ 1981 or 1983 or Title VII.” Drake v. City of Fort Collins, 927 F.2d 1156, 1162 (10th Cir. 1991); see Randle v. City of Aurora, 69 F.3d 441, 450 (10th Cir. 1995) (stating that a city can be held liable for any impermissible employment decisions under either §§ 1981 or 1983). 11 We must pause here, though, to ask what this means in the procedural posture of this case: a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. In Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506 (2002), the Supreme Court explained that McDonnell Douglas’s prima facie case is “an evidentiary standard, not a pleading requirement.” Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 510. As the Court made clear, the standards for employment discrimination set forth in McDonnell Douglas simply do not “apply to the pleading standard that plaintiffs must satisfy in order to survive a motion to dismiss.” Id. at 511. Still, Twombly and Iqbal require that a plaintiff allege a plausible claim. Despite what Dr. Morman suggests, we can evaluate her claim’s plausibility only by considering the prima facie case of discrimination that she would need to prove in court. In pleading a discrimination claim, she need not set forth a prima facie case for discrimination. But she must allege facts that make such a claim at least plausible. Thus, to evaluate whether her complaint survives a motion to dismiss, absent direct evidence of discrimination, we examine the first step of the McDonnell Douglas framework: the elements Dr. Morman would need to establish to prove a prima-facie case of gender discrimination. See Khalik, 671 F.3d at 1192. That is the only way to assess if her claim is, in fact, plausible. Dr. Morman must have pleaded a plausible claim of gender discrimination to survive dismissal. The inferences offered by the McDonnell Douglas framework assist judges in resolving motions to dismiss by providing an analytical framework to sift through the facts alleged. Messina v. Kroblin Transp. Sys., Inc., 903 F.2d 1306, 1308 (10th Cir. 1990). Although the 12 burden-shifting framework is only an evidentiary standard, we must recognize that “the McDonnell Douglas framework should not be applied in a manner that renders it nothing more than an empty pleading formula, allowing every allegation of employer discrimination to get to a jury.” Zamora v. Elite Logistics, Inc., 478 F.3d 1160, 1173 (10th Cir. 2007); see id. (evaluating the standard in the context of a motion for summary judgment). What Dr. Morman needed to plead to state a plausible claim of discrimination depends on the nature of the claim she filed. Here, Dr. Morman’s sole claim is premised on the Equal Protection Clause, which requires that no state “deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. This constitutional guarantee “prohibits state and local governments from treating similarly situated persons differently.” Rector v. City & Cty. of Denver, 348 F.3d 935, 949 (10th Cir. 2003). The fundamental guarantee is that “all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.” City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S 432, 439 (1985). The prima-facie case required to support a claim of intentional discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause varies based on the context and nature of the facts. Indeed, “[t]he Supreme Court recognized in McDonnell Douglas that the articulation of a plaintiff’s prima facie case may well vary, depending on the context of the claim and the nature of the adverse employment action alleged.” Plotke v. White, 405 F.3d 1092, 1099 (10th Cir. 2005) (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802 n.13); see Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 358 (1977) (explaining that 13 McDonnell Douglas created a flexible standard for plaintiffs to show a prima facie case of discrimination that may be modified to fit the facts of a case). “[T]he McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework applies to equal-protection claims in the employment context.” Ney v. City of Hoisington, 264 F. App’x 678, 684 (10th Cir. 2008) (unpublished). Because there are varying standards based on the particular facts of any given discrimination case, the parties dispute which elements should apply here.6 But we need not decide the specific elements Dr. Morman would need to prove to succeed at trial. Under any standard, to prevail on an equal-protection claim, she would need to show that she was treated differently than similarly situated employees—in other words, she needed to be similarly situated to the male orthopedic surgeons. See Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) (explaining that a plaintiff must show that she was “intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated”). In any employment-discrimination case, the ultimate issue and “central focus of the inquiry . . . is always whether the employer is treating some people less favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 6 On the one hand, in her response to the motion to dismiss, Dr. Morman urged the court to apply the standard from E.E.O.C. v. PVNF, L.L.C., 487 F.3d 790 (10th Cir. 2007): “[A] prima facie case of discrimination must consist of evidence that (1) the victim belongs to a protected class; (2) the victim suffered an adverse employment action; and (3) the challenged action took place under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination.” PVNF, 487 F.3d at 800. On the other hand, the defendants turn to Orr v. City of Albuquerque, 417 F.3d 1144 (10th Cir. 2005), which required a plaintiff to prove “(1) membership in a protected class, (2) adverse employment action, and (3) disparate treatment among similarly situated employees.” Orr, 417 F.3d at 1149. The district court applied the latter. 14 Furnco Constr. Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 577 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, to survive the motion to dismiss, Dr. Morman needed to plead a plausible claim that she was similarly situated to the male orthopedic surgeons. That she has failed to do. Accepting all of Dr. Morman’s allegations as true, we readily can see that she hasn’t pleaded a plausible claim that she was similarly situated to the PROS surgeons “in all material respects.” Kan. Penn Gaming, 656 F.3d at 1217 (emphasis added). Gender alone is insufficient without considering other factors, such as the contrasting circumstances in which Dr. Morman and the PROS surgeons became CCMH employees. In September 2009, CCMH employed Dr. Morman after she returned from her Massachusetts fellowship. In May 2012, by contrast, CCMH hired the PROS surgeons as part of CCMH’s multi-million-dollar purchase of their ongoing practice, building, and equipment. Thus, CCMH hired Dr. Morman as a qualified surgeon who just had returned to Gillette, but hired the PROS surgeons as part of a multi-milliondollar transaction in which they sold their established orthopedic surgery and radiology practices to CCMH. Simply put, the facts Dr. Morman alleged in her complaint show her dissimilarity from the PROS surgeons. She did not offer anything approaching the level of assets, staff, building, patient base, equipment, or years of building a local and regional reputation as had the PROS surgeons. Her education and skill cannot justify a legal rule requiring that, before acquiring PROS and hiring its owners, 15 CCMH must elevate Dr. Morman’s employment conditions to those offered to the PROS surgeons. Nor can it justify a rule requiring that it must condition its purchase of PROS upon its three surgeons receiving the same pay and employment conditions as it had hired Dr. Morman. Simply put, the Equal Protection Clause provides no such relief here. Dr. Morman incorrectly contends that the district court engaged in impermissible fact-finding in dismissing her claim. In fact, the district court did no more than faithfully accept her factual allegations as true and evaluate those facts within the disparate-treatment framework. It examined the consideration paid for the PROS practice, the negotiated management agreement, and the services that the PROS surgeons provided. When it looked at these facts alleged in her complaint, the district court concluded—and we agree—that the PROS surgeons “brought many things to the bargaining table when they were hired that [Dr. Morman] simply did not.” Appellant’s App. vol. 3 at 347. As the district court explained, all of the issues that form the bases of Dr. Morman’s claim—the clinic name; employee hiring, staffing, and management; the office space; radiology services; and marketing campaigns—“are things [the PROS surgeons] brought to the table when they entered into the agreements with CCMH three years after [Dr. Morman] was hired.” Id. As Dr. Morman acknowledges, to prevail she must plausibly allege that the differential treatment is “on account of being a member of a protected class.” Appellant’s Opening Br. 37. The Fourteenth Amendment provides “equal laws,” but it does not guarantee “equal results.” Pers. Adm’r of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 16 273 (1979). Here, given the difference in what Dr. Morman and the PROS physicians brought to CCMH, Dr. Morman has not pleaded a plausible claim for gender discrimination. Her facts, accepted as true, show only that the hospital’s negotiations with different parties resulted in different outcomes—the PROS surgeons had far more to offer CCMH when they negotiated their terms of employment. Because Dr. Morman has failed to allege a plausible claim that she was treated differently than similarly situated employees, we hold that the district court properly dismissed her discrimination claim.