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Trial begins involving Bay Pines discrimination, retaliation claims

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 16, 2009

TAMPA - Three doctors and a former administrator from Bay Pines VA Medical Center say the hospital's chief of staff and chief of medicine retaliated against them because they filed complaints with the hospital Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.

A federal jury began hearing testimony this morning in a lawsuit brought by the four women against the federal Department of Veteran's Affairs charging retaliation and a hostile work environment. Two of the women, physicians Claudia G. Cote and Sally B. Zachariah, also charge sex discrimination and one, physician Diane T. Gowski, alleges she was discriminated against because of her Roman Catholic, pro-life views.

"The evidence is going to show that at Bay Pines, the management, the top level management, made a concerted effort to retaliate against employees who filed EEO claims against them or opposed their discrimination or retaliatory action against them," plaintiff's attorney Joseph Magri told jurors in his opening statement this morning.

But government attorney Scott H. Park told jurors that the women had problems with reforms instituted at the hospital by Chief of Staff George Van Buskirk, who instituted changes that vastly improved patient care.

"The plaintiffs here really don't like the changes that Dr. Van Buskirk and Dr. [Lithium] Lin implemented," Park said.

He told jurors that five years ago, patients had to wait months to get an appointment to see doctors at the hospital. "Those problems were dumped onto the lap of Dr. George Van Buskirk when he took the helm."

The changes Van Buskirk implemented, he said, have eliminated the long waits without harming patient care.

"Dr. Lin and Dr. Van Buskirk were on a mission, and that mission was to improve health care," Park said. "This case isn't about discrimination and retaliation. It's about making change so people don't have to wait months to see their doctor."

Magri said one of the plaintiffs, Roxanne Lainhart Bronner, was administrative officer in the hospital's medicine office and worked under Lin, the chief of medicine. Lin told Bronner that Van Buskirk was against EEOC complaints and would ruin the careers of anyone who filed them.

Bronner told Lin that it was against federal law to retaliate, but Lin eventually turned on her, Magri said. "She was told good things would happen to her if -- one of those ifs was if she became ruthless."

Magri told jurors Bronner "will tell you about efforts to harm the reputations, spread rumors, spread stories about the doctors."

The trial before U.S. Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun III is expected to last more than two weeks.

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