University Medical Center responds to sanctions report in wage case

By Ken Ritter, Associated Press

Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014 | 4:25 p.m.

Nevada's public hospital wants a federal judge to throw out the work of a court-appointed special master who recommends severe monetary sanctions after concluding that documents weren't produced as required in an employee wage and hours lawsuit.

Attorneys for University Medical Center claim in documents filed this week that Special Master Daniel Garrie was biased and that he reached "erroneous conclusions without any depth of legal analysis."

The 48-page document, filed Tuesday, also asks U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon in Las Vegas to hear oral arguments about the hospital's objections to the recommendation that the court order the hospital to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in court costs and sanctions.

"Special Master Garrie lost sight of his assigned tasks and his neutrality," the hospital said in a plea for Gordon to reject nearly all of Garrie's recommendations.

The taxpayer-supported hospital also pleads poverty, saying extraordinarily harsh financial sanctions sought by Garrie could cripple the only public hospital in Nevada and the facility of last resort for badly needed indigent care in the state's largest city.

A Clark County spokesman, Erik Pappa, and Jon Tostrud, lead lawyer for plaintiffs in the case, declined to comment Friday. Plaintiffs have until Sept. 16 to respond in court.

Garrie defended his work.

"I believe I did my job and my duties, and the record speaks for itself," he said. "Ones and zeroes speak for themselves."

Garrie was hired in March after months of bickering between the two sides and court orders for the hospital to turn over emails, text messages and computer records that it had been ordered to preserve after the civil lawsuit was filed in July 2012.

The lawsuit, Small v. University Medical Center, claims that for years, thousands of nurses, respiratory therapists, clerks and other employees weren't paid for working through 30-minute meal periods. The hospital employs more than 3,000 people.

Garrie's 78-page report, filed Aug. 18, found pervasive misconduct by hospital record-keepers who he determined "lied, or at best withheld" electronic records that should have been provided to plaintiffs' lawyers.

He recommended the court sanction the hospital and reach a summary judgment in favor of more than 600 class-action plaintiffs who want damages and back pay, plus interest.

"The level of intentional destruction of evidence by UMC shocks the conscience," he wrote.

Garrie didn't attach a dollar figure to his recommendation for monetary sanctions. An actual sanction amount would be set by a judge.

He did note that his costs "run into the hundreds of thousands," even before counting other attorney fees and costs.

UMC is the only publicly funded hospital in the state and has the region's top trauma center and burn units.

The facility needed a $70 million subsidy from Clark County to balance its budget this year and took out another $45 million in emergency loans.