Evans v. New York City Health And Hospitals Corporation
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:21-cv-10378
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Evans v. New York City Health And Hospitals Corporation, Judge Engelmayer granted dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), denied Rule 12(b)(7) dismissal, and allowed limited amendment.
Pauline Evans, whose claims were dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) but who was allowed to amend her potential Fourteenth Amendment due process claim for the limited purpose of adding allegations about her employment; the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(7) argument was denied.
What happened
In Evans v. New York City Health And Hospitals Corporation, Pauline Evans challenged her termination from Lincoln Hospital after she did not comply with the hospital’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. She alleged violations involving unwanted medical care, due process, the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, and a federal civil-rights statute.
The defendants initially did not respond, and the court later vacated certificates of default after denying Evans’s request for default judgment. The defendants then asked the court to dismiss the case for failure to state a claim and for failure to join New York State as a defendant. No party objected to the magistrate judge’s recommendation.
Judge Engelmayer adopted the recommendation in full. He granted the motion insofar as it sought dismissal under the rule for failure to state a claim, denied it insofar as it relied on failure to join New York State, and allowed Evans to amend only her due process claim by September 15, 2023, to add facts about the terms of her employment.
The detailed version
- Evans v. New York City Health And Hospitals Corporation · No. 1:21-cv-10378
- Paul Engelmayer
- Aug. 29, 2023
Background
Pauline Evans, proceeding without a lawyer, alleged that New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation Lincoln violated her rights by enforcing a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for employees. The opinion states that Evans was a former head nurse at Lincoln Hospital and that she was terminated on November 1, 2021, for failing to comply with the policy.
Evans’s complaint asserted a right to refuse unwanted and medically unnecessary medical care, Fourteenth Amendment due process claims, a Supremacy Clause claim, and claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. After Evans initially failed to serve the defendants, the court dismissed the case for failure to prosecute, then reopened it after Evans moved to reopen and filed proof of service. The defendants later appeared and opposed Evans’s motion for default judgment. The court denied that motion and vacated the certificates of default.
Motion to dismiss
The defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which concerns whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim, and Rule 12(b)(7), which concerns failure to join a required party. Magistrate Judge Valerie Figueredo recommended granting the motion under Rule 12(b)(6), denying it under Rule 12(b)(7), and advising Evans that Lincoln Hospital could not be sued because it is operated by New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, a public benefit corporation created by the New York State Legislature.
The recommendation also concluded that Evans appeared to assert a property interest in her employment but had not alleged facts describing the terms of that employment. It therefore recommended allowing Evans to amend her potential Fourteenth Amendment due process claim for that limited purpose. No party objected, so Judge Engelmayer reviewed the recommendation for clear error.
Ruling
The court adopted Judge Figueredo’s report and recommendation in its entirety. It granted the defendants’ motion insofar as it sought dismissal of Evans’s claims in full under Rule 12(b)(6), but denied the motion insofar as it sought dismissal under Rule 12(b)(7) for failure to join New York State.
The court stated that the dismissal was without prejudice to Evans’s right to timely replead the Fourteenth Amendment due process claim by adding allegations about the nature of her employment. The amended complaint was due September 15, 2023. The court stated that if Evans did not file it by that date, the case would be closed, with prejudice to filing an amended complaint. The opinion also states that the parties’ failure to object to the recommendation waived appellate review.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.