Discrimination: Court Turns Down Male Nurse’s Suit.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
August 2016
A male nurse is considered a minority who has rights under the laws against discrimination in employment.
However, this nurse’s legal case fails because he cannot identify at least one female nurse in a comparable position who was disciplined less harshly for basically the same offenses for which he was guilty.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT TENNESSEE July 1, 2016
A male nurse was promoted to house supervisor. That position put him in charge of all the nurses, aides, secretaries and housekeepers working in the hospital during his shift.
Soon complaints began to be heard by higher management that he was sexually harassing his subordinates through inappropriate dialogue and comments in the workplace. His inappropriate behavior continued nevertheless after he received counseling and so he was terminated.
The US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee turned down his discrimination lawsuit because none of the nurses whom he identified for comparison was a female nurse in a position comparable to his who committed the same offenses but was disciplined less harshly.
Two of the six nurses he identified were men. Anti-male discrimination cannot be proven by comparing men to men.
All of the four female nurses he identified had engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct or dialogue while on the job. However, none of the guilty female nurses was in a supervisory role, let alone a house supervisor able to abuse the authority of her position by harassing subordinates.
Wallace v. Hospital, 2016 WL 3568593 (M.D. Tenn., July 1, 2016).More from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/discrimination-male-CNA.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/malediscrim.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/malediscrim2.htm