A Los Angeles County jury rendered a verdict in favor of a former Kaiser Permanente nurse, Maria Gatchalian, for approximately $41.5 million in her wrongful termination and retaliation lawsuit against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.
Gatchalian, who had been a neonatal intensive care unit nurse and charge nurse at Kaiser's Woodland Hills Medical Center since 1989, was terminated in 2019 after nearly 30 years of employment. In her lawsuit, she alleged she was fired for repeatedly reporting patient safety and quality-of-care concerns, including chronic understaffing in the NICU, nurses who lacked critical skills, failures to feed infants, and a staff member's HIPAA violation. She also alleged age and disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and related harassment.
Kaiser maintained that the termination resulted from a policy violation, asserting that Gatchalian had placed her bare feet on an isolette, a medical device used to care for premature or sick newborns, and argued that this conduct justified a loss of confidence in her as a leader.
The jury found in Gatchalian's favor, awarding about $11.49 million in compensatory damages, including $9 million for emotional distress, and $30 million in punitive damages, for a total of roughly $41.49 million. Kaiser has stated that it disagrees with the verdict, continues to stand by the termination decision, and intends to pursue an appeal.
Source: https://healthexec.com/topics/healthcare-management/legal-news/nurse-awarded-41m-wrongful-termination-lawsuit-against-kaiser-permanente
Commentary
In the above matter, the defendant argued that it terminated Gatchalian for resting her feet on an isolette and that this led to a loss of confidence in her leadership.
Healthcare employers face heightened risk when they terminate a long-term employee for a single lapse and then describe that lapse as the primary reason for discharge.
Jurors, government regulators, and other decision-makers in the judicial process frequently view such actions through the lens of pretext, asking whether the stated reason is a cover for retaliation, discrimination, or hostility toward a whistleblower.
When a nurse, therapist, or technician has decades of positive service and no comparable discipline history, a sudden termination for one mistake -especially if lesser discipline was used for similar conduct by others - can be used as circumstantial evidence that the employer's explanation is not credible.
The risk increases when the event follows closely after protected activity such as raising patient safety concerns, reporting harassment, requesting an accommodation, or when documentation of performance problems appears only after the conflict arises.
The final takeaway is that healthcare employers should ensure that corrective action is proportional, consistent with past practice, and supported by contemporaneous records, and that decision-makers can articulate why lesser measures such as coaching, retraining, or a final warning were not appropriate.
