May 2018

  An employee can sue for discrimination only if the discrimination caused the employee to experience adverse employment action.  It is not adverse employment action to be refused a letter of recommendation for nursing school or to be refused follow up on complaints about other employees’ patient care.  UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NEVADA March 23, 2018

  A CNA who is a Caucasian male was offered employment in the hospital’s telemetry unit after a successful interview with the unit’s female nurse manager.  However, he soon began to have problems documenting vital signs and failed to follow instructions for assisting a high-fall-risk patient.  That led to a corrective action plan at his ninety-day review.  To keep up with his corrective action plan as to patient vital signs he apparently started recording vitals taken hours later for earlier and actually fabricated vitals that were never taken at all.  He was terminated for falsification of records and incompetence.  

  The US District Court for the District of Nevada ruled the hospital had legitimate, nondiscriminatory grounds to fire him.  The CNA could not identify a female or minority counterpart who was not terminated for the same misconduct the hospital identified as the reason he was fired.  

  A victim of discrimination can only sue over adverse employment action.  Refusing to write a letter of recommendation for an employee or failing to follow up on complaints about coworkers’ care-giving is not considered adverse employment action because it does not affect the terms and conditions of the employee’s own employment. Robinson v. Med. Ctr., 2018 WL 1463382 (D. Nev., March 23, 2018).

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