Facts

Plaintiff Ruth Sankranthi was employed as a clinical documentation specialist by Defendant El Camino Hospital. El Camino Hospital made the decision to terminate her employment, citing performance reasons, including a failure to improve after a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) and an extension of the PIP. Soon after the termination decision was made, Sankranthi learned of needing to take leave due to pregnancy complications. Meanwhile, El Camino Hospital's managers, including Sankranthi's direct manager J. Hatala, were not aware that she was pregnant and were not aware that she had a disability or required leave at the time that they made the decision to terminate her employment. Sankranthi filed a discrimination complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, followed by a civil suit in state court, alleging gender and national origin discrimination, among other claims.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS: During her employment, Sankranthi complained about the inappropriate and offensive comments that her supervisor, Jessica Hatala made about her appearance and clothing. Thereafter, Hatala began to overly scrutinize Sankranthi's performance, including criticizing and disciplining her for petty errors or when she had done nothing wrong. Sankranthi contended that her performance was the same or better than her colleagues who were not subject to criticism and discipline for their performances. She filed a complaint against El Camino alleging causes of action for discrimination, violation of Pregnancy Disability Leave, failure to accommodate, disability discrimination, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination, interference with Family Medical Leave Act rights, and retaliation for exercising rights to California Family Rights Act Leave.

DEFENDANTS' CONTENTIONS: Defendants denied all contentions. It submitted evidence of Plaintiff's unsatisfactory job performance. In addition, Hatala had concerns about Plaintiff's inappropriate attire and disrespectful and distracting behavior at work. Hatala, in consultation with Human Resources, issued a Documented Verbal Counseling for Inappropriate Conduct to Plaintiff warning her that she needed to improve her behavior. Hatala also supplied Plaintiff with a detailed performance improvement plan to support her success in providing compliant and clinically appropriate queries, communicating with others in a collaborative, professional, and respectful manner and completing daily work as assigned. Despite this, El Camino contends that Plaintiff continued to have performance issues and Hatala continued to have one-on-one coaching meetings with Plaintiff approximately once a week to support her in meeting performance expectations. Finally, given Plaintiff's continued failure to meet performance expectations and extensive poor feedback, Hatala consulted with Human Resources and they decided it was appropriate to terminate Plaintiff's employment. All the individuals who participated in the termination decision were female.

Result

Defendants' motion for summary judgment was granted.