Rutland
The hospital system, in the Dec. 15 filing in U.S. District Court in Vermont, acknowledges that Dr. Misty Blanchette Porter — who worked at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon — lost her job on June 3, following the closing of the infertility program.
“Defendants admit that Plaintiff’s employment at Dartmouth-Hitchcock was terminated,” wrote Tristram Coffin of the Burlington-based law firm Downs Rachlin Martin, on behalf of the defendants, which include Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health.
But the hospital system denies that Blanchette Porter’s termination was related to a disability or to whistle blowing, as she alleged in her complaint filed in October. D-H, in its filing, asked the court to dismiss all three counts in the suit: Wrongful discharge, violation of the Whistleblowers’ Protection Act, and disability discrimination and retaliation.
Rick Adams, D-H’s spokesman, declined to comment on the case, saying that it is D-H’s policy not to comment on pending litigation.
Email and phone requests for comment left for Norwich attorney Geoffrey Vitt, who is representing Blanchette Porter, were not returned.
Based on court documents, both parties seem to agree that prior to her termination in June, Blanchette Porter had been a D-H employee for more than 20 years, working in the areas of obstetrics and gynecology, reproductive endocrinology and infertility, and radiology. Her services included caring for patients with hormonal imbalances and genetic syndromes affecting the reproductive system; providing in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technology procedures, as well as fertility-related surgeries and ultrasounds.
In her initial complaint, Blanchette Porter alleged that D-H violated the Americans With Disabilities Act and New Hampshire’s unlawful discriminatory practice laws when it failed to provide reasonable accommodations for her to perform her job and when it fired her.
At the time of her firing, Blanchette Porter was on long-term disability. In her filing, she said she was working 20 hours per week as a result of an injury sustained in November 2015.
In its response, the hospital system acknowledged that Blanchette Porter was on long-term disability and working part-time, but denied the other allegations and said that Blanchette Porter does not have a disability as defined under state or federal law.
“Plaintiff was not a qualified disabled person, as she was not capable of performing the essential functions of her position with or without reasonable accommodation,” according to the filing by Coffin, who served as U.S. attorney for Vermont from 2009 to 2014.
The hospital system also said its actions toward Blanchette Porter were “legitimate and non-discriminatory” and that “no similarly situated non-disabled employees were treated differently than Plaintiff.”
All four of the physicians working in D-H’s infertility clinic, which had 124 patients at the time, lost their jobs as a result of the clinic’s closing. Blanchette Porter also alleged the infertility clinic and its providers demonstrated a tolerance for substandard care, participated in fraudulent billing practices, failed to obtain necessary patient consent and, in one instance, impregnated a patient when the patient and the sperm were at risk of being exposed to Zika virus.
D-H, in its filing, denied most of these allegations, though it acknowledged receiving complaints from Blanchette Porter about some of her fellow physicians.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
