Dr. Ming Lin, the emergency room doctor who was fired after speaking out about COVID-19 safety practices at St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham, has settled his lawsuit against PeaceHealth.
“I’m satisfied,” Lin told Cascadia Daily News on Wednesday, Jan. 8. “It was the right thing to do.”
The mediated settlement was reached to avoid lengthy and costly litigation, according to a joint statement from Lin and PeaceHealth, as well as Richard DeCarlo and “Jane Doe” DeCarlo, who were also named as defendants in the case. A trial date had been postponed at least twice. Richard DeCarlo is an Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for PeaceHealth.
“After much consideration, we collectively decided that going to trial and the potential distraction and discord it could create is not in the best interest of the Whatcom County community,” the statement reads. “We hope to put this matter behind us and instead focus on our shared goal to provide compassionate, high-quality healthcare.”
The details of the settlement are confidential, stated Lin’s lawyer, Jason Fellner, a managing partner with the California-based Fellner Law Group.
Lin was dropped as a client by his previous lawyers after he refused to accept a potential multi-million-dollar settlement unless PeaceHealth admitted it was wrong to terminate him in 2020. PeaceHealth has denied wrongdoing.
The joint statement did not address the issue.
However, Lin is moving forward with an amended lawsuit against TeamHealth, which was also a defendant in the lawsuit filed in May 2020, under the name Northwest Emergency Physicians.
“Dr. Lin is focused on pursuing this claim against a private equity-owned TeamHealth in an effort to make him whole and, as his advocate, I want to ensure TeamHealth doesn’t harm any of its other doctors, nurses or their patients through this lawsuit,” Fellner told CDN.
TeamHealth, a medical labor contractor, was not immediately available for comment.
Lin at the time was working as a contractor in the St. Joseph emergency room as a contractor for TeamHealth, the Tennessee-based medical administration company.
In his lawsuit, Lin said he was let go after 17 years at St. Joeseph in retaliation for speaking out about unsafe practices at the hospital in the early days of the pandemic.
“PeaceHealth is so far behind when it comes to protecting patients and the community but even worse when it comes to protecting the staff,” Lin stated in a March 2020 email to the hospital’s chief medical officer, according to court documents.
Lin’s email went on to say the hospital should start testing patients for COVID-19 in the parking lot, rather than inside the building, as other hospitals were already doing. It also stated temperature checks and risk questionnaires should be required of all patients and staff who entered the hospital.
The contents of the email were also posted to Lin’s public Facebook page.
The lawsuit states that Lin feared that his concerns about the hospital’s COVID-19 preparedness would be “brushed aside by TeamHealth” due to how the organization previously handled his complaints regarding discrimination, bias and hostile work environment.
Fellner explained that during the discovery process for the case “it became clear that TeamHealth undertook an effort to retaliate against Dr. Lin for raising concerns associated with discrimination he sustained while working for TeamHealth at St. Joseph.”
As a result of that discovery, Lin amended his complaint.
“It also became clear through that discovery after taking numerous depositions that TeamHealth was negligent in its hiring and training of its employees which caused Dr. Lin substantial damages,” Fellner said.
The amended complaint makes six legal claims, including wrongful termination in violation of public policy, breach of contract and negligent hiring, training and supervision.
The trial date for the 2020 case was scheduled for February 2024 but was moved to October 2024 before being moved again. The date for a jury trial is now set for May 6.
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
