A California federal court has rejected a hospital’s motion for summary judgment in a case brought by a former nurse who claims she was fired for being too old.

Seventy-year-old Lavon Ramsey had worked at Fairchild Medical Center for 14 years and was rated “commendable range” on her most recent performance evaluation, when the hospital told her she was being fired for violating HIPAA’s confidentiality provisions.

In her role as the hospital’s Employee Health Nurse, Ramsey administered TB tests to employees. When one employee’s test results were ambiguous, he had further tests by his private physician.  Ramsey saw the physician’s reports and discussed them with him and with the head of the hospital’s lab.  The hospital argues that looking at the employee’s medical record and discussing the test results amounted to a HIPAA violation.

Ramsey sued, alleging that she was actually fired because of her age, that the alleged HIPAA violation was a pretext, that there was no HIPAA violation because her actions were a legitimate part of her duties as Employee Health Nurse, and that the hospital was actively trying to rid itself of older employees.  She supported the last point with testimony by former employees that administrators had expressly stated the need to get rid of older employees, specifically including Ramsey because of her high health care costs.

On June 8 the court denied the hospital’s motion for summary judgment and alternative motion for partial summary judgment.  The court reasoned that at this summary judgment motion stage, the hospital hadn’t met the burden of showing that at trial Ramsey would be unable to establish the elements of an age discrimination claim and establish that the alleged HIPAA violation was a pretext.

The case is Ramsey v. Siskiyou Hosp., No. 2:14-cv-01908-KJM-CMK (E.D. Calif., Jun. 8, 2016).