by Carrie Pond
The 6th Circuit recently affirmed a trial court’s decision to dismiss a retaliation lawsuit by an employee who was fired for forwarding confidential patient information to her personal e-mail account, despite her contention that her actions were protected by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Image may be NSFW.
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Facts
Sarah Aldrich worked for Rural Health Services (RHS), a nonprofit healthcare provider. RHS must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) requirements protecting the privacy of patients’ medical records.
In 2011, RHS fired CFO Benny Brewster, who then filed an age discrimination lawsuit. Shortly after Brewster filed suit, the company’s CEO sent Aldrich several e-mails and instructed her to delete them after she read them because the CEO feared that Brewster’s attorneys would review company e-mails.
Aldrich, who claimed she was already concerned about her own job security, believed the CEO was destroying evidence relevant to Brewster’s lawsuit. Thus, in April 2012, she began forwarding e-mails between her and the CEO to her personal e-mail account for storage.
However, Aldrich forwarded e-mails to her personal account without knowing what was in them. Many of the e-mails had nothing to do with Brewster’s lawsuit but contained confidential patient information, including details about the conditions for which they were being treated and medications they were prescribed.
After discovering that Aldrich had forwarded the e-mails to her personal account, IT and HR met with her and asked her to delete them from her account. When she refused, the company suspended her. After she continued to refuse to delete the e-mails, RHS fired her.
Aldrich sued, claiming RHS retaliated against her for engaging in conduct protected by the ADEA—i.e., preserving evidence for the age discrimination lawsuit filed by Brewster. The trial court dismissed her lawsuit, and she appealed that decision to the 6th Circuit.
Court’s ruling
The 6th Circuit upheld the dismissal of the case, ruling that RHS didn’t illegally retaliate against Aldrich or violate the ADEA. Specifically, to prove a retaliation claim under the ADEA, an employee must show that she engaged in some kind of protected activity. Aldrich claimed that by forwarding the e-mails and “preserving” them for Brewster’s lawsuit, she was participating in his lawsuit and engaging in protected activity under the ADEA. The 6th Circuit rejected her argument.
Although the court agreed that some of the e-mails were related to Brewster’s lawsuit, it pointed out that Aldrich wasn’t directly involved in any litigation or responding to any request from Brewster’s attorneys when she forwarded the e-mails to her personal account. Had she been fired for disclosing e-mails in response to a subpoena or for providing deposition testimony in Brewster’s litigation, the ADEA would have protected her. However, the court ruled that her indiscriminate forwarding of confidential information to her personal e-mail account wasn’t protected.
Because Aldrich’s use of e-mails containing private patient information was patently unreasonable, the court ruled that she had no retaliation claim. Aldrich v. Rural Health Servs. Consortium, Inc., No. 14-5074 (6th Cir., Aug. 13, 2014).
Bottom line
The unreasonableness of the employee’s actions with regard to private patient Image may be NSFW.
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information was her downfall and resulted in a win for the employer. However, it’s still important to tread lightly when you’re considering disciplinary action against employees who are involved in litigation because you may expose yourself to additional risk. Although the employer in this case prevailed, it first had to defend itself against not one, but two, ADEA claims.
Carrie Pond is an attorney with Frost Brown Todd LLC in Louisville, Kentucky. She may be contacted at cpond@fbtlaw.com.