Court Opinion

ID: 9960134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-15 16:00:54.423679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:15.485647
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 23-3125     Document: 010111031814       Date Filed: 04/15/2024     Page: 1
                                                                                   FILED
                                                                       United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                          Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                           April 15, 2024
                          _________________________________
                                                                          Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                              Clerk of Court
 JEFFREY P. RHOADS, M.D.,

       Plaintiff - Appellant,

 v.                                                          No. 23-3125
                                                    (D.C. No. 5:22-CV-04005-JWB)
 STORMONT VAIL HEALTHCARE,                                     (D. Kan.)
 INC.,

       Defendant - Appellee.
                       _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
                          _________________________________

 Before TYMKOVICH, PHILLIPS, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges.
                  _________________________________

       Dr. Jeffrey Rhoads appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to

 his former employer, Stormont Vail Healthcare, Inc. (Stormont), in his action

 alleging unlawful failure to accommodate under the Rehabilitation Act (RA),

 29 U.S.C. § 794 and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12112.

 Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

       *
         After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
 unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
 argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
 submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent,
 except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It
 may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Appellate Case: 23-3125    Document: 010111031814        Date Filed: 04/15/2024    Page: 2

                                   BACKGROUND 1

       Dr. Rhoads specializes in internal medicine. He was a hospitalist at Stormont

 employed under a contract he signed in 2019. In 2020, other doctors at Stormont

 reported concerns that Dr. Rhoads was exhibiting signs of dementia and that his work

 was showing a steady decline in quality. These concerns led to the formation of an

 internal committee at Stormont. That committee recommended a temporary

 restriction of Dr. Rhoads’s clinical privileges and referred him to Acumen

 Assessments, Inc. (Acumen) for evaluation. Dr. Rhoads scheduled an appointment

 with Acumen for January 2021 and worked his last shift as a hospitalist in November

 2020. Also beginning in January 2021, Dr. Rhoads requested and received up to one

 year of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

       Acumen diagnosed Dr. Rhoads with mild neurocognitive disorder. He was not

 considered fit to return to the practice of medicine at that time, and he agreed he

 would likely not be able to return to his work as a hospitalist. Dr. Rhoads admitted

 that, if he made a mistake with a patient, it could cause harm or death. He did not

 reapply for clinical privileges before his existing privileges were due to expire, which

 Stormont policy considers a voluntary withdrawal.

       Through their respective attorneys, Dr. Rhoads and Stormont engaged in the

 interactive process to determine whether, and under what conditions, Dr. Rhoads

 could return to work. Dr. Rhoads’s counsel conceded Dr. Rhoads could not return to

       1
          The facts we recite here are either undisputed or, where disputed, construed
 in the light most favorable to Dr. Rhoads. See Markley v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n,
 59 F.4th 1072, 1080 (10th Cir. 2023).

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 work as a hospitalist, but he requested a position as an outpatient physician as an

 accommodation.

       Dr. Rhoads took the position that he should work with an Advanced Practice

 Registered Nurse (APRN) or a Physician’s Assistant (PA) for supervision as an

 accommodation. This position would have cost Stormont between $112,050 and

 $225,432 per year. For a physician to perform this type of supervision, it would have

 cost between $458,625 and $1,473,958 per year. Stormont has in place a process

 called proctoring, which it generally uses for new physicians who recently received

 privileges. The proctoring process, however, requires a peer (meaning neither an

 APRN nor a PA could proctor Dr. Rhoads) and it is not designed for open-ended,

 indefinite-term use in the way Dr. Rhoads proposed.

       Dr. Rhoads, through counsel, also initially requested reassignment to an

 administrative position that did not require patient care. Stormont’s attorney

 requested a conference call with Dr. Rhoads and his attorney to discuss potential

 reassignment to an administrative position, but no call ever occurred. Later, during

 the parties’ mediation, Stormont proposed reassignment to the Door Screener job, 2

 but Dr. Rhoads did not accept that proposal. Dr. Rhoads made no further inquiries

 regarding reassignment in his correspondence with Stormont.

       2
         The Door Screener role at Stormont paid $15 per hour. According to his
 employment contract, Dr. Rhoads’s base salary as a hospitalist was $305,000
 per year. At some point during discussions with Stormont, Dr. Rhoads joked that he
 hoped to become “the best paid copy boy ever.” Aplt. App. vol. 2 at 379.

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       Dr. Rhoads filed a charge of discrimination in July 2021. Stormont terminated

 his employment in September 2021. Dr. Rhoads brought suit thereafter, alleging

 unlawful failure to provide reasonable accommodation, retaliation, and breach of

 contract. The district court granted Stormont’s motion for summary judgment, and

 this timely appeal followed.

                                     DISCUSSION

       We review the grant of summary judgment de novo. May v. Segovia,

 929 F.3d 1223, 1234 (10th Cir. 2019). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the

 movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant

 is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “On appeal, we

 examine the record and all reasonable inferences that might be drawn from it in the

 light most favorable to the non-moving party.” Markley v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n,

 59 F.4th 1072, 1080 (10th Cir. 2023) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).

       Although Dr. Rhoads’s Amended Complaint asserted claims under both the

 ADA and RA under theories of failure to accommodate, retaliation, and breach of

 contract, the scope of this appeal is narrower. He raises no argument that the district

 court erred in granting summary judgment on his retaliation claim, and so he has

 waived that issue. See Becker v. Kroll, 494 F.3d 904, 913 n.6 (10th Cir. 2007) (“An

 issue or argument insufficiently raised in the opening brief is deemed waived.”). He

 likewise does not contest the district court’s conclusion that his breach of contract

 “claim is redundant of [his] claims for failure to accommodate and for unlawful

 termination” and that “the legal analysis is substantially the same for this claim” as

                                            4
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 for the ADA and RA claims. Aplt. App. vol. 2 at 518–19. And we apply the same

 substantive standards to ADA and RA claims. See Rivero v. Bd. of Regents of Univ.

 of N.M., 950 F.3d 754, 758 (10th Cir. 2020) So, we limit our review to the district

 court’s grant of summary judgment on Dr. Rhoads’s ADA claims.

       The ADA prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals on the

 basis of their disabilities. “To establish a prima facie failure-to-accommodate claim,

 [Dr. Rhoads] had to show: (1) he was disabled; (2) he was otherwise qualified; (3) he

 requested a plausibly reasonable accommodation; and (4) [Stormont] refused to

 accommodate his disability.” Dansie v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 42 F.4th 1184, 1192

 (10th Cir. 2022). “Once an employee requests reassignment as an accommodation,

 both the employee and employer have an obligation to engage in an interactive

 process, which . . . requires good-faith communications.” Herrmann v. Salt Lake

 City Corp., 21 F.4th 666, 674 (10th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted).

       Dr. Rhoads argues he presented sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of

 material fact on two failure-to-accommodate theories: reassignment to an outpatient

 physician role with a proctor and reassignment to a role that does not require patient

 care, such as Door Screener. But the district court concluded, and we agree, that the

 first proposed accommodation is not reasonable. The cost alone of hiring an

 additional physician to supervise Dr. Rhoads—between nearly one-half to one-and-

 one-half million dollars—is unreasonable. And the proctoring system at Stormont

 was not designed to facilitate the indefinite supervision of a physician whose

 condition could worsen over time. Neither an APRN nor a PA could perform this

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 work because, as non-physicians, they could not legally assume supervisory authority

 over Dr. Rhoads. See Kan. Stat. Ann. § 65-28a08(a) (“Physician assistants practice

 in a dependent role with a supervising physician . . . .”); id. § 65-2872(m) (“The

 practice of the healing arts shall not be construed to include . . . [n]urses practicing

 their profession when licensed and practicing under and in accordance with [Kansas

 law].”).

        Dr. Rhoads argues the district court overlooked a genuine dispute of material

 fact regarding whether he posed a direct threat to patient safety if he continued to

 practice medicine at Stormont. But he admitted that, were he to make a mistake, it

 could result in serious harm or death to a patient. That is, he admitted that, for the

 role of outpatient physician, “the essential job duties necessarily implicate the safety

 of others” so he bore the burden “to show that he can perform those functions without

 endangering others.” Justice v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., 527 F.3d 1080, 1091

 (10th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). He cannot meet

 this burden; his arguments that he did not pose a direct threat to patient safety all rely

 on the availability of his proposed proctoring accommodation, which we have already

 agreed is not reasonable as a matter of law.

        We also agree with the district court that Dr. Rhoads cannot establish

 Stormont’s liability for failure to offer him reassignment to an administrative

 position: Stormont twice broached the possibility of reassignment through its

 negotiations with counsel, and Dr. Rhoads twice declined. We cannot, on this record,

 find a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Dr. Rhoads engaged in the

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 interactive process on this proposed accommodation in good faith. He plainly did

 not.

                                    CONCLUSION

        We affirm the judgment of the district court.

                                            Entered for the Court

                                            Timothy M. Tymkovich
                                            Circuit Judge

                                            7