Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—E.D. Pa.: Race and age bias claims against Temple Health advance to discovery, (Jun 18, 2026)

By Wendy Biddle, J.D.

A nurse’s allegations about a delayed promotion are sufficient to proceed under Title VII, the ADEA, and the PHRA.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied Temple Health LLC's motion to dismiss a discrimination suit brought by a licensed practical nurse, allowing all three counts of her complaint to proceed to discovery. The former employee claimed that the hospital system delayed promoting her to a registered nurse position because of her race and age, even as it promoted younger, Caucasian employees with similar attendance records (Smith-Fleming v. Temple Health LLC, No. 2:26-cv-01578-CFK (E.D. Pa. June 15, 2026)).

According to the complaint, the plaintiff, a 49-year-old African American woman, began working as a licensed practical nurse at Chestnut Hill Hospital in December 2021; Temple acquired the hospital in 2023. In November 2024, she received a written warning for accumulating four attendance points, which she attributes in part to absences tied to a workers' compensation claim for an on-the-job injury. In March 2025, she passed the board exam required to become a registered nurse, a position that carries higher pay and greater responsibility. The nurse alleged that Temple's standard practice is to promote licensed practical nurses to registered nurse status immediately upon passing the exam, but that Temple cited her attendance record to withhold her promotion until February 2026, nearly a year later. She further alleged that younger, Caucasian colleagues with comparable attendance issues were promoted without similar delay.

The nurse filed suit with three causes of action: racial discrimination in violation of Title VII; age discrimination in violation of the ADEA; and racial and age discrimination in violation of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA). Temple moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).

Motion to dismiss. Temple argued that the nurse was not qualified to be a registered nurse at the time she requested promotion due to her disciplinary history. The court found Temple's qualification argument premature, holding that whether the nurse's attendance record actually disqualified her from promotion was precisely the kind of disputed factual question reserved for summary judgment, not a motion to dismiss. Because she had affirmatively pleaded that passing the exam rendered her qualified, that allegation was entitled to the presumption of truth.

Temple also argued that the nurse failed to plead any facts supporting an inference that race played any role in Temple’s decision not to promote. Temple characterized her allegations as conclusory and her comparator references as threadbare, faulting her for not identifying comparators by name, job title, or supervisor. The court rejected Temple's contention that a plaintiff relying on circumstantial evidence must allege a specific discriminatory remark or action by a decision-maker, noting that Third Circuit precedent permits plaintiffs to rely on comparator evidence precisely because discriminatory motive is often concealed behind pretextual justifications.

The court also rejected Temple's demand for granular comparator detail, explaining that at the pleading stage a plaintiff need not identify comparators by name or establish their precise job histories; rather, she must allege facts plausibly suggesting that similarly situated employees outside her protected class engaged in comparable conduct but received more favorable treatment. The court found that the nurse met that bar by alleging Temple's uniform promotion policy, her own attendance-related delay, and a pattern of overlooking identical attendance issues for Caucasian and younger employees seeking the same promotion.

In doing so, the court distinguished the out-of-circuit and district-court decisions Temple cited as involving far thinner allegations, where plaintiffs offered only generic assertions of disparate treatment without identifying the basis for comparison. Here, by contrast, the complaint tied the alleged disparity to a specific, identifiable practice, the promotion process following the board exam, which the court found materially similar to allegations the Third Circuit has previously deemed adequate, including a case in which an age discrimination plaintiff was permitted to proceed based solely on his replacements being significantly younger, without pleading their exact ages or specialties.

The court applied the same reasoning to the nurse's age claims, noting that the ADEA and PHRA are governed by an identical legal standard and that the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework operates as an evidentiary standard at summary judgment rather than a pleading requirement. The court found Temple's age-based arguments foreclosed for the same reasons as its race-based arguments, observing that the complaint's allegation that Temple "overlooked" younger employees' attendance issues in connection with the same promotion track was sufficient, at the pleading stage, to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery would uncover evidence of discriminatory motive.

Having found all three counts adequately pleaded, the court denied Temple's motion in full and directed the case to proceed to discovery.

The case is No. 2:26-cv-01578-CFK.

Judge: Kenney, C.

Attorneys: Aaron L. Peskin (Kang Haggerty) for Kadena Smith-Fleming. Elizabeth Mcmanus (Ballard Spahr) for Temple Health LLC.

Companies: Temple Health LLC

Cases: Discrimination RaceDiscrimination AgeDiscrimination StateLawClaims PennsylvaniaNews