Opinion ID: 774170
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Burden-Shifting Method

Text: 21 Under the frequently applied burden- shifting method established by McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), the plaintiff must establish his or her prima facie case, then the defendant must articulate one or more legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its action, and finally the plaintiff has an opportunity to show that the defendant's reasons are pretextual. Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-53 (1981). While we do not underestimate the importance of requiring a plaintiff to satisfy the first step, see Coco v. Elmwood Care, Inc., 128 F.3d 1177, 1178 (7th Cir. 1997) (emphasiz[ing] that the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas must be established and not merely incanted), we will skip to the question of pretext, in part because of the lack of a well-devel oped list of elements for a prima facie sec. 1981 case outside of the employment context. 22 The defendant argues that it did not sell to Dr. Sanghvi because a better deal was presented by WWC. This is a legitimate reason for refusing to sell the practice assets to the plaintiff and Dr. Sanghvi cannot show that this reason is pretextual. The explanation for this conclusion tracks part of our discussion of why Dr. Sanghvi's direct evidence does not present a genuine issue of material fact, and so we will only briefly list the reasons supporting the defendant's sale to WWC rather than the plaintiff. In July, WWC offered to pay the defendant in a lump sum, something that the hospital had insisted upon and that Dr. Sanghvi could not do. Selling to WWC also increased the number of referrals that the hospital was likely to receive, since WWC was a group of physicians rather than a sole practitioner like Dr. Sanghvi. WWC's deal also did not have the refund provision contained in the plaintiff's June 25 offer. 23 Nor can Dr. Sanghvi show that the defendant's reasons for refusing to accept his offer on November 6 are pretextual. The defendant legitimately was concerned about being sued for breach of contract if it reclaimed the assets from WWC. The hospital could have still preferred WWC, even though it was offering less money, because its greater number of doctors would lead to more referrals and thus greater revenue for the hospital in the long run. Also, the discovery of Dr. Sanghvi's billing practices when he was filling in for Dr. Bonaventura and his August 2 letter, which was hostile to the defendant and seemingly an attempt to lure away Dr. Bonaventura's former patients to his practice, indicated that the defendant was unlikely to receive many referrals from the plaintiff if it sold him the practice.