Northwest Arkansas Hospitals, LLC will pay more than $100,000 in compensatory and punitive damages to a former male employee after a jury found in favor of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in a sex discrimination lawsuit, the federal agency announced.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Northwest Arkansas Hospitals, LLC, doing business as Northwest Medical Center-Bentonville, violated federal law when it allowed two doctors to subject a male surgical technician to discrimination because of his sex.

The EEOC presented evidence at trial showing that in 2022, two female obstetricians in the labor and delivery unit prohibited a surgical technician from performing a majority of the job duties for which he was hired, because he is male. Although numerous complaints about the discrimination were escalated as high as the CEO, the hospital failed to follow its own anti-discrimination policies and refused to end the discrimination. At trial, a former company director testified that the surgical technician was a victim of the hospital’s culture of discrimination. In 2022, the hospital was owned by Community Health Systems, Inc., based in Franklin, Tennessee.

On July 24, after a five-day trial, the jury returned a verdict for the EEOC, awarding compensatory damages of $5,000 plus $100,000 in punitive damages to the surgical technician. In light of the successful verdict, EEOC plans to petition the court for injunctive relief, including requiring the hospital to conduct training to prevent future sex discrimination, and will submit a bill of costs to be paid by the defendant.

Source: EEOC