Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—E.D. Pa.: Indian-born therapist’s retaliation claims against hospital and individual employees may move forward, (Feb 11, 2025)

By Thomas K. Lauletta, J.D.

However, the employee failed to prove race-based discrimination.

A federal court in Pennsylvania allowed an Indian-born therapist’s Title VII retaliation claims against the Norristown State Hospital and individual hospital employees to move forward. However, the employee failed to offer sufficient proof of race discrimination against the hospital and the employees. Regarding the retaliation claims, he demonstrated causation between his protected activity of filing an EEOC complaint and the adverse employment action of suspending him for three months without pay. All of the parties agreed that his First Amendment retaliation claim could move forward (Zachariah v. Norristown State Hospital, No. 24-2358 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 7, 2025)).

The employee has been employed at Norristown State Hospital (NSH) as a Forensic Therapeutic Activities Worker since February 24, 2019. He alleged that he was discriminated against because of his race and subjected to retaliation by the NSH and several individual hospital employees after he reported patient abuse to the hospital’s HR department, law enforcement, and the press.

He alleged that the retaliation included a suspension, reprimands, threats, reassignments, and unwarranted disciplinary investigations. These actions allegedly came about because he had been condemned by some of the employee defendants for “snitching” against a security guard who the worker alleged had assaulted a patient; was subjected to threats, substantiated by other NSH employees, but for which the NSH did not act on because the threats were verbal and did not give rise to the level of physical violence; and was wrongfully accused of several actions which the NSH later concluded were unfounded.

After filing race discrimination and retaliation claims with the EEOC, the employee brought race discrimination claims under Title VII against NSH and under Sections 1981 and 1983 against several named hospital employees. Additionally, he brought retaliation claims under Title VII (against NSH) and First Amendment claims via Section 1983 against the employee defendants.

The NSH and the employee defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule 12(b)(6).

Race discrimination claim. The employee alleged that he was “the only Indian-born therapist at NSH and the only therapist with an Indian accent.” Throughout his tenure, he alleged that he was mocked by colleagues for his accent.

The court held that he employee failed to state a claim for race discrimination under Title VII and Section 1981 because he did not offer sufficient evidence that the adverse employment action occurred under circumstances that gave rise to an inference of intentional discrimination. The court characterized his complaint as “largely devoid of particularized allegations referencing his race aside from a handful of allegations,” which the court rejected.

The court noted that the employee’s first argument asserted that he was part of a racial minority and that his NSH colleagues mimicked and mocked his accent but he failed to tie this allegation to any adverse action taken by the defendants. Second, he argued that he was discriminated against because he advocated for Indian-born patients and was chastised for it by some of the employee defendants. The court rejected this contention, noting that such associational Title VII claims usually involve familial or spousal relationships, which were not present here.

Finally, the court rejected the employee’s claim that no white therapist suffered similar adverse employment action because he failed to identify a similarly situated individual outside his protected class who engaged in the same conduct but was treated more favorably.

Title VII retaliation claim against NSH. The court ruled that the employee’s Title VII retaliation claim against NSH could proceed. In so ruling, it noted that in less than eight weeks after he engaged in the protected activity of filing a discrimination complaint with the EEOC, the NSH suspended him for more than three months without pay. The court rejected the defendants’ argument that two months was too tenuous a time frame to establish causation between the EEOC complaint and the employee’s suspension.

However, taking his allegations as true, the court found that suspending him for three months without pay, to investigate allegations of abuse that took place on a day that the employee was not working at NSH, could reasonably be seen as an “inconsistent explanation” for the adverse employment action.

First Amendment claim. Finally, the court ruled that the employee adequately pleaded his First Amendment retaliation claim. The defendants did not dispute, at this stage of the proceeding, this claim. Although the court stated that it did not agree that every one of his “reports of patient abuse and threats to his safety” could be the basis for his First Amendment retaliation claim, it agreed with both the employee and the defendant that he sufficiently alleged that he spoke “as a citizen addressing matters of public concern.”

Court action. The court dismissed the worker’s race discrimination claims without prejudice as to all defendants. However, the worker’s retaliation claims can proceed to discovery.

The case is No. 24-2358.

Judge: Kenney, C.

Attorneys: Joseph P. Guzzardo (Guzzardo and Associates) for Alex Zachariah. Stephen R. Kovatis, Governor's Office of General Counsel, for Norristown State Hospital.

Cases: Retaliation RaceDiscrimination Discrimination PennsylvaniaNews