Hospital withholds settlement records in fired employee’s suit over mandatory flu shot

In 2012, the Medical Center of Central Georgia instituted a policy requiring all employees to get a flu vaccine annually.

Vann Causey Jr., a clinical technician hired in 2008, declined to do so, citing his diagnosis of an autoimmune disorder and a risk of permanent vision damage.

He was fired Dec. 3, 2012.

In 2015, the 62-year-old filed a federal lawsuit against what’s now the Medical Center, Navicent Health, alleging employment discrimination and contending that the hospital had failed to accommodate his disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

He sought more than $72,000 in back pay, punitive damages and $500,000 in other compensation.

Although terms of a June settlement in the case are confidential, The Telegraph filed an Open Records Act request for details, relying on a 1995 agreement between the Bibb County Commission and the hospital that records would remain open to the public after hospital control shifted from public to private hands.

In a Monday letter, an attorney for the hospital wrote that the hospital’s records aren’t subject to disclosure.

Ken Banks, general counsel for Navicent Health, responded to a request for comment Tuesday, saying the hospital agreed in 1995 in its restructuring lease from the Macon-Bibb County Hospital Authority to remain subject to Georgia’s Open Records and Open Meeting laws to the same extent as a Georgia hospital authority.

He said the 1995 lease remains in effect and that the hospital “continues to meet its obligations under it and the Georgia sunshine laws.”

In the Causey case, he said, the parties agreed upon mutual confidentiality.

David Hudson, an attorney for The Telegraph and the Georgia Press Association, said parties are not allowed to “contract away their open government obligations” whether they arise from the Open Records Act or from a “binding agreement.”

Court cases have uniformly held that settlement agreements can’t bypass open records obligations, Hudson said in an email Tuesday.

Banks also said agencies and restructured hospitals subject to sunshine laws have been afforded exemptions by the state Legislature, and it’s common that such entities “properly decline to disclose documents requested” if they meet a statutory exemption.

“This is fully consistent with the legislative intent of the Open Records Act,” he said.

In the letter denying release of the records, attorney Trishanda Treadwell wrote that the documents are protected by “attorney-client and litigation work product privileges.” They also contain an individual’s confidential information, including financial data. Also, the records contain “non-public, confidential and valuable plans, proposals, calculations and strategies, which are a competitive advantage in the operation of the medical facilities.”

Hudson said the Georgia Supreme Court is now considering an attempt by Atlanta’s Northside Hospital to overturn prior Georgia Court of Appeals decisions that private hospital corporations created by public hospital authorities remain subject to the Open Records Act.

“Regardless of the outcome of the Northside case, a contract entered between a public hospital and any private entity that assumed control of hospital assets should be binding and enforceable,” he said.

With an agreement such as the Medical Center, Navicent Health’s, “records of the settlement of a lawsuit by the hospital with a former employee should be produced in response to an Open Records Act request,” Hudson said.

Current Macon-Bibb County Commissioner Joe Allen sat on the county’s board of commissioners in 1995 when the agreement with The Medical Center was reached.

Ensuring that records remained open to the public was important to commissioners because they wanted to keep an eye on taxpayers’ money, Allen said.

“The Medical Center belongs to the people of Macon and Bibb County,” he said. “It always has and it always will. That’s one reason why we pay indigent care to it.”

Told of the hospital’s denying the newspaper’s records request, Allen said, “If this is going to be the case, we need to go back to court and we need to unravel everything that’s been done.”

At the time of the transfer to private hands, he said, the commission had been giving the hospital millions for indigent care.

“We’ve been paying all this money over the years,” Allen said of such funding to the Medical Center. The commission hasn’t paid similarly to Coliseum Medical Centers.

“This hospital is our hospital,” he said of the Medical Center.

The lawsuit

According to filings in Causey’s lawsuit against the hospital:

The hospital contends that it acted “in good faith with respect to its obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990” and that Causey is not a “qualified individual” as defined by the act.

Causey claims his autoimmune disorder is a permanent condition with no cure, and that he’s a member of a protected group under the act.

The hospital maintains that Causey received written and verbal warnings to submit proper exemption paperwork by Oct. 31, 2012, and he presented a purported doctor’s note a month past the deadline.

Causey says he tried to get an exemption form from the hospital before the deadline, but was instructed to get a letter from his doctor.

The hospital denied subjecting Causey to discrimination and said the former employee turned down a reasonable accommodation.

Causey and the hospital agree that Causey was offered a “live” form of the vaccine after he presented a doctor’s note requesting that he be excused from the vaccination requirement and receiving an inactive form of the vaccine.

The hospital maintains that a nurse practitioner offered to contact Causey’s doctor’s office to get more information about his condition and the vaccine restrictions, but he refused.

Causey claims he asked a nurse at the hospital to talk with his ophthalmologist about his condition, but she refused.

In his lawsuit, Causey says he lost his home and retirement benefits for which he would have been fully vested within about two months of his termination.

Causey’s lawyer declined comment Tuesday.

This story was originally published August 1, 2017 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Hospital withholds settlement records in fired employee’s suit over mandatory flu shot."