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Court of Appeal:
No Need to Accord ‘Academic Deference’ to Dismissal of Resident Physician by Hospital
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday reversed a judgment in favor of a hospital in a gender discrimination case brought by a discharged resident, holding that the jury was improperly instructed that it was to lend academic deference to the defendant’s decision.
“This case presents an issue of first impression under California law: whether a medical resident’s claim that she was dismissed from her residency program due to gender discrimination and in retaliation for complaints about discrimination and workplace safety is subject to the rule of academic deference,” Justice Maria E. Stratton of Div. Eight wrote. “We hold the predominant relationship between a medical resident and a hospital residency program is an employee-employer relationship, and so academic deference does not apply to the jury’s determination whether the resident was terminated for discriminatory or retaliatory reasons.”
The plaintiff, Dr. Noushin Khoiny, had completed her second year of residency in a three-year program when she was dismissed in 2014 by St. Mary Medical Center (“SMMC”). Her action was tried in 2018 in the courtroom of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger.
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NOUSHIN KHOINY Internist |
Jury Instruction
He instructed the jury:
“Since St. Mary’s residency program was academic in nature, St. Mary’s academic judgment should not be overturned unless it is found to have been arbitrary and capricious, not based on academic criteria, or motivated by bad faith, or ill will, or motivated by retaliation or discriminatory reasons unrelated to her academic performance. “You must uphold the decision of St. Mary Medical Center unless you find its decision was a substantial departure from accepted academic norms as to demonstrate that the person or committee did not actually exercise professional judgment.”
Minor Aspect
The instruction, Stratton said, was erroneous and requires reversal. While there is an educational aspect to residency, she wrote, it is merely a side feature.
“…SMMC is not primarily an academic institution and treating its residency program as ‘primarily’ an academic program does not match the realities of medical residency programs,” she declared. “They are employment programs with an educational component.”
Stratton added:
“[W]e hold that a residency program’s claim that it terminated a resident for academic reasons is not entitled to deference….[T]he jury should be instructed to evaluate, without deference, whether the program terminated the resident for a genuine academic reason or because of an impermissible reason such as retaliation or the resident’s gender.”
The case is Khoiny v. Dignity Health, B301486.
Attorney on appeal were Ilana Makovoz of Makovoz Law Group in Beverly Hills for Khoiny and Linda Miller Savitt, Eric C. Schwettmann and John J. Manier of the Encino firm of Ballard Rosenberg Golper & Savitt for Dignity Health, which does business as St. Mary Medical Center.
Earlier Case
Yesterday’s decision was her second loss in Div. Eight. On Oct. 23, 2020, in an unpublished opinion by then-Presiding Justice Tricia A. Bigelow (now retired), it affirmed a judgment of nonsuit granted by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Susan Bryant-Deason after Khoiny presented her evidence in a defamation action against five physicians who denigrated her work at St. Mary’s.
Bigelow said Khoiny failed to show malice so as to overcome the qualified common interest privilege set forth in Civil Code §47(c).
Khoiny is now an internist in Long Beach and is a lecturer in the School of Nursing at California State University, Long Beach.
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