8 ms·

Ascension’s response to Thedacare’s motion for restraining order [pdf]

Natsu 5y ago
On a side note, the temporary injunction from before was dissolved today after this finding. This filing makes it very clear how this is entirely ThedaCare's fault, how ThedaCare blindsided both Ascension and the Court with their lawsuit, that ThedaCare has many other options to care for patients without leaving them out in the cold so there's no public interest grounds for the temporary injunction, and that they also have no legal grounds for blocking this recruitment. This also seems to underscore the notion that a fish rots from the head: apparently ThedaCare's top management were in on this terrible decision. I know I wouldn't want to work there after reading this, so I won't be surprised if they get more resignations soon.
- bewaretheirs 5y ago
  The linked document is a legal brief from Ascension, not a finding by a judge, and represents Ascension's view of the situation. That said, the judge apparently vacated the order blocking the seven employees from starting work at Ascension: https://www.wpr.org/thedacare-loses-court-fight-keep-health-care-staff-who-resigned https://www.wpr.org/thedacare-loses-court-fight-keep-health-...
  - himinlomax 5y ago
    Note that you can probably give the benefit of the doubt to Ascension here on the factual claims simply because they (or their lawyer) could get in trouble with the court for lying, while they have little to gain in this case by doing so. The most damning elements, such as Thedacare having revoked the former employees' accounts, not scheduling them and having refused to renegotiate the employment terms would be so easy to disprove that it's hard to see how they could be entirely made up.
  - Natsu 5y ago
    You're not wrong, but the details on how they could hire outside contractors to save their certification and the details on how this won't harm actual patients--the only conceivable grounds for the temporary injunction as far as I'm concerned--coupled with the judge dismissing the injunction are things I find very persuasive. Some of the details in there can also be cross-checked with other things, like that posting on r/nursing. So you present a very good point that we can't take anyone's reply as gospel truth, but in this case, we do have significant corroboration for the points made in this. The points I can actually verify are more than enough for me to say that ThedaCare is full of crap and deserves to go out of business. I know that I won't be patronizing them, given any reasonable choice in the matter.
- bloopernova 5y ago
  I'd read in /r/nursing on Reddit that Thedacare management had months to find a solution to their problem, but for whatever reason kicked the can down the road until last week. I wonder where the disconnect was? Department director/manager panicking and underplaying the situation to their bosses? Or upper management paralyzed by the thought of paying one department better and everyone else hearing about that?
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure it was a hardball negotiation tactic that failed. The employment market hasn't been as good as it is now since before 2008, a lot of assumptions would have been built in that time about how to negotiate with employees. Those assumptions clearly aren't valid any more.
    - pasabagi 5y ago
      The surprising thing is that a judge would go along with it, since his injunction, and by extension his office, is essentially being instrumentalized as part of a negotiation tactic.
      - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
        Apparently this isn't the only time he's done something that would concern your average bystander https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2018/12/20/reviewer-recommends-removing-judge-mark-mcginnis-truancy-court/2369276002/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2018/12/20/reviewer-...
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        I think a temporary injunction was reasonable given the severity of theracares claims. They said ascension did something illegal and as a result, lots of 3rd party individuals will die. Taking a weekend to review and weigh the arguments from each side is what I would want to do. Remember that judges are human too and need time to review the relevant laws and think
black_puppydog 5y ago
So... A privatized hospital, the epitome of US free market radicalism, is suing to prevent their workers from freely participating in the local work market? Seems like a good summary of what "free" markets actually look like in practice and with what entitlement the people operate who benefit from them.
- diordiderot 5y ago
  Not only did they sue. They won an injunction preventing their employees from taking the new job. Now they get to feel the full force of modern klepto-capitalism wrapped around their necks as bills come due. Land of the free. EDIT: It seems they've been allowed to take the new job as of yesterday. Here's the filing https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/ascensionbriefjan24.pdf https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/ascensionbriefjan24....
  - vmception 5y ago
    > Land of the free. I mean the hospital feels that way. People that came here and set up entire states to do opposite things of the directly neighboring state felt that way. The lawyer moonlighting as a poet who started that meme while actual soldiers were fighting felt that way. It was never a quote for the - lol - proleteriat and the lyrics delayed its use as a slogan and anthem for over a hundred years.
  - slabity 5y ago
    They received a temporary restraining order up until today's hearing for the actual injunction to keep the employees until new ones could be hired. [1] The injunction itself was not granted thankfully. Edit: I should have started with at least a source: [1]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/thedacare-vs-ascension-returns-to-court-after-temporary-restraining-order-granted/ar-AAT5MIP https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/thedacare-vs-ascension-...
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    > Wisconsin health care workers will be allowed to start new jobs at Ascension after judge dismisses temporary restraining order https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/24/thedacare-ascension-court-over-health-care-worker-employment/6635683001/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/24/thedacare... You are welcome!
MrStonedOne 5y ago
> when they were told by Interim Director of Cardiovascular Service Line Ron Schumaker that ThedaCare would not be making any counteroffer. As he put it, the short term expense of retaining the radiology technologists was not worth the long term expense, because if ThedaCare paid to keep these employees, it would have to offer raises to everyone. The entire thing is a good read.
intunderflow 5y ago
It's absolutely mad that the temporary restraining order was even approved from the outset. No court should be able to compel people to keep working at a private employer on pain of contempt of court, in some perverted form of indentured servitude.
- bewaretheirs 5y ago
  The TRO was an order to Ascension, not to the seven former employees of Thedacare. It did not compel the seven former employees to continue working at Thedacare; instead, it blocked Ascension from hiring them until after Thedacare had hired their replacements. See: https://www.wbay.com/2022/01/20/thedacare-seeks-court-order-against-ascension-wisconsin-worker-dispute/ https://www.wbay.com/2022/01/20/thedacare-seeks-court-order-...
  - hmottestad 5y ago
    Does this mean that the seven former employees of Thedacare didn't have to go back to work for Thedacare in the interim? If that was the case, then why was the injunction granted in the first place? Was it due to some suspicion of anticompetitive behaviour? It doesn't seem that it was an attempt at helping the public keep their access to important medical care, which was the tune that Thedacare was playing for the press.
    - hmottestad 5y ago
      A case could be made for anticompetitive behaviour if a big company hired all the key personell from a small company in order to run them out of business so they wouldn't have to compete against them in the future. Especially if the big company overpaid for the employees, or had the intention of letting them go once the small company was bankrupt.
    - bewaretheirs 5y ago
      That's what Ascension said in their brief: "Nothing that happens in the remainder of this case, regardless of the Court’s decision on this motion, can force those employees to return to ThedaCare to labor against their will. So the only equitable remedy available to the Court is an injunction prohibiting these employees from serving trauma patients at Ascension."
drivebycomment 5y ago
> It said the broader case, in which ThedaCare argues that Ascension inappropriately group-recruited these employees, will go forward in court. That is insanity. The lawyer working for this crazy company ThedaCare needs to be disbarred, responsible for taking this insane position/argument and wasting everyone's time and money.
- onion2k 5y ago
  The lawyer working for this crazy company ThedaCare needs to be disbarred, responsible for taking this insane position/argument and wasting everyone's time and money. I don't know if it's the case in the US, but here in the UK if you bring a frivolous law suit it's very likely that you will not only lose but the cost of losing is that you have to pay all of the court costs, which includes paying the bills of the legal team of the person or company you sued. It's a very good way of deterring silly law suits. I would hope the same mechanism is available to the court in the US, and that Thedacare end up paying for their own lawyers, but Ascensions's lawyers too.
  - RHSeeger 5y ago
    It's also a very good way of preventing a small entity from suing a large one for anything but a sure thing; since, if they lose, they could wind up on the hook for legal fees that are way out of their price range.
    - zaarn 5y ago
      That's why german has standard rates for lawyers. You don't pay the other side's actual legal costs, you pay a standard rate of their legal costs. And since lawyers not on payroll are required to bill standard rate, your legal costs rarely exceed first court estimates (though you can ask for more if you had additional costs).
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    >I don't know if it's the case in the US, but here in the UK if you bring a frivolous law suit it's very likely that you will not only lose but the cost of losing is that you have to pay all of the court costs, which includes paying the bills of the legal team of the person or company you sued. It is most assuredly NOT the way of things normally in the US. It's possible to sue for legal costs in some circumstances, but it's absolutely not a built-in feature of the legal system.
thematrixturtle 5y ago
TL;DR if you're feeling out of the loop: last week, a hospital group in Wisconsin (Thedacare) successfully sued to stop 7 employees from quitting and going to another hospital (Ascension), essentially forcing them to keep working against their will. The PDF here lays out in painfully hilarious detail why the restraining order was bullshit, and it was duly overturned today. Longer version at NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/thedacare-lawsuit-wisconsin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/thedacare-lawsuit-wisc...
- spuz 5y ago
  Thedacare has not successfully sued anyone - a temporary injunction was granted. The injunction does not force the 7 employees to work.
  - MereInterest 5y ago
    The economic system forces the employees to work at some location. Their skill set and the timetable make A and B the only reasonable options. The injunction removed A as a possibility. Therefore, the injunction required them to work at B. If an order, taken within the context of how the world works, leads to the employees being forced to work at ThedaCare, then it is an order forcing them to work at ThedaCare.
  - nulbyte 5y ago
    Thedacare sued, successfully, in that they successfully initiated legal proceedings and are presently litigating their case. The verb sue means to initiate legal proceedings; it does not mean to prevail at such proceedings.
    - ubermonkey 5y ago
      The plain meaning of the term "sued successfully" means you won the lawsuit. That didn't happen. They got a (dubious!) injunction that did not last a single business day. That the judge granted said injunctions is INSANE on the face of it, but to say they "sued successfully" is incorrect.
ww520 5y ago
The seven ex-employees should sue ThedaCare and get punitive damage from ThedaCare. The punitive damage needs to be huge to send a message to any potential companies trying this trick again.
sleepingadmin 5y ago
>That day, they provided the details of their offers to ThedaCare management and requested a counteroffer. They received no response until December 28, when they were told by Interim Director of Cardiovascular Service Line Ron Schumaker that ThedaCare would not be making any counteroffer. As he put it, the short term expense of retaining the radiology technologists was not worth the long term expense, because if ThedaCare paid to keep these employees, it would have to offer raises to everyone. So they literally made the decision to not try to keep their staff because of $. Then made the decision to spend money in the lawsuit. But they also spent money going to the media which backfired on them. Afterall, everyone can see they were lying. Management clearly not performing to satisfactory levels.
- ljm 5y ago
  Now the cat is out of the bag, they will have spent a fortune on litigation, PR, and recruitment only to have to offer raises to anyone anyway. Whether they like it or not, they're on the record for not paying their staff enough and they'll surely be faced with more counter-offer situations. 'Penny-wise and pound-foolish' doesn't really carry the gravitas required to express the true enormity of leadership's stupidity on this one.
  - sleepingadmin 5y ago
    >'Penny-wise and pound-foolish' doesn't really carry the gravitas required to express the true enormity of leadership's stupidity on this one. Very true. Mind you, this is the metric for Executive performance. A nurse's metrics on performance would be treating and helping patients right. This is how the executives are measured. They are 100% certainly going to flamingly fail here.
    - pooper 5y ago
      Does it matter though? I imagine nobody knows the name of the CXO or the board members. They could simply rename thedacare to Meta or something, right? I don't see how there is any justice here unless the CEO and the board go to prison.

On a side note, the temporary injunction from before was dissolved today after this finding. This filing makes it very clear how this is entirely ThedaCare's fault, how ThedaCare blindsided both Ascension and the Court with their lawsuit, that ThedaCare has many other options to care for patients without leaving them out in the cold so there's no public interest grounds for the temporary injunction, and that they also have no legal grounds for blocking this recruitment. This also seems to underscore the notion that a fish rots from the head: apparently ThedaCare's top management were in on this terrible decision. I know I wouldn't want to work there after reading this, so I won't be surprised if they get more resignations soon.

bewaretheirs 5y ago
The linked document is a legal brief from Ascension, not a finding by a judge, and represents Ascension's view of the situation. That said, the judge apparently vacated the order blocking the seven employees from starting work at Ascension: https://www.wpr.org/thedacare-loses-court-fight-keep-health-care-staff-who-resigned https://www.wpr.org/thedacare-loses-court-fight-keep-health-...
- himinlomax 5y ago
  Note that you can probably give the benefit of the doubt to Ascension here on the factual claims simply because they (or their lawyer) could get in trouble with the court for lying, while they have little to gain in this case by doing so. The most damning elements, such as Thedacare having revoked the former employees' accounts, not scheduling them and having refused to renegotiate the employment terms would be so easy to disprove that it's hard to see how they could be entirely made up.
- Natsu 5y ago
  You're not wrong, but the details on how they could hire outside contractors to save their certification and the details on how this won't harm actual patients--the only conceivable grounds for the temporary injunction as far as I'm concerned--coupled with the judge dismissing the injunction are things I find very persuasive. Some of the details in there can also be cross-checked with other things, like that posting on r/nursing. So you present a very good point that we can't take anyone's reply as gospel truth, but in this case, we do have significant corroboration for the points made in this. The points I can actually verify are more than enough for me to say that ThedaCare is full of crap and deserves to go out of business. I know that I won't be patronizing them, given any reasonable choice in the matter.
bloopernova 5y ago
I'd read in /r/nursing on Reddit that Thedacare management had months to find a solution to their problem, but for whatever reason kicked the can down the road until last week. I wonder where the disconnect was? Department director/manager panicking and underplaying the situation to their bosses? Or upper management paralyzed by the thought of paying one department better and everyone else hearing about that?
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure it was a hardball negotiation tactic that failed. The employment market hasn't been as good as it is now since before 2008, a lot of assumptions would have been built in that time about how to negotiate with employees. Those assumptions clearly aren't valid any more.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    The surprising thing is that a judge would go along with it, since his injunction, and by extension his office, is essentially being instrumentalized as part of a negotiation tactic.
    - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
      Apparently this isn't the only time he's done something that would concern your average bystander https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2018/12/20/reviewer-recommends-removing-judge-mark-mcginnis-truancy-court/2369276002/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2018/12/20/reviewer-...
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      I think a temporary injunction was reasonable given the severity of theracares claims. They said ascension did something illegal and as a result, lots of 3rd party individuals will die. Taking a weekend to review and weigh the arguments from each side is what I would want to do. Remember that judges are human too and need time to review the relevant laws and think

black_puppydog 5y ago

So... A privatized hospital, the epitome of US free market radicalism, is suing to prevent their workers from freely participating in the local work market? Seems like a good summary of what "free" markets actually look like in practice and with what entitlement the people operate who benefit from them.

diordiderot 5y ago
Not only did they sue. They won an injunction preventing their employees from taking the new job. Now they get to feel the full force of modern klepto-capitalism wrapped around their necks as bills come due. Land of the free. EDIT: It seems they've been allowed to take the new job as of yesterday. Here's the filing https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/ascensionbriefjan24.pdf https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/ascensionbriefjan24....
- vmception 5y ago
  > Land of the free. I mean the hospital feels that way. People that came here and set up entire states to do opposite things of the directly neighboring state felt that way. The lawyer moonlighting as a poet who started that meme while actual soldiers were fighting felt that way. It was never a quote for the - lol - proleteriat and the lyrics delayed its use as a slogan and anthem for over a hundred years.
- slabity 5y ago
  They received a temporary restraining order up until today's hearing for the actual injunction to keep the employees until new ones could be hired. [1] The injunction itself was not granted thankfully. Edit: I should have started with at least a source: [1]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/thedacare-vs-ascension-returns-to-court-after-temporary-restraining-order-granted/ar-AAT5MIP https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/thedacare-vs-ascension-...
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  > Wisconsin health care workers will be allowed to start new jobs at Ascension after judge dismisses temporary restraining order https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/24/thedacare-ascension-court-over-health-care-worker-employment/6635683001/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/24/thedacare... You are welcome!

MrStonedOne 5y ago

> when they were told by Interim Director of Cardiovascular Service Line Ron Schumaker that ThedaCare would not be making any counteroffer. As he put it, the short term expense of retaining the radiology technologists was not worth the long term expense, because if ThedaCare paid to keep these employees, it would have to offer raises to everyone. The entire thing is a good read.

intunderflow 5y ago

It's absolutely mad that the temporary restraining order was even approved from the outset. No court should be able to compel people to keep working at a private employer on pain of contempt of court, in some perverted form of indentured servitude.

bewaretheirs 5y ago
The TRO was an order to Ascension, not to the seven former employees of Thedacare. It did not compel the seven former employees to continue working at Thedacare; instead, it blocked Ascension from hiring them until after Thedacare had hired their replacements. See: https://www.wbay.com/2022/01/20/thedacare-seeks-court-order-against-ascension-wisconsin-worker-dispute/ https://www.wbay.com/2022/01/20/thedacare-seeks-court-order-...
- hmottestad 5y ago
  Does this mean that the seven former employees of Thedacare didn't have to go back to work for Thedacare in the interim? If that was the case, then why was the injunction granted in the first place? Was it due to some suspicion of anticompetitive behaviour? It doesn't seem that it was an attempt at helping the public keep their access to important medical care, which was the tune that Thedacare was playing for the press.
  - hmottestad 5y ago
    A case could be made for anticompetitive behaviour if a big company hired all the key personell from a small company in order to run them out of business so they wouldn't have to compete against them in the future. Especially if the big company overpaid for the employees, or had the intention of letting them go once the small company was bankrupt.
  - bewaretheirs 5y ago
    That's what Ascension said in their brief: "Nothing that happens in the remainder of this case, regardless of the Court’s decision on this motion, can force those employees to return to ThedaCare to labor against their will. So the only equitable remedy available to the Court is an injunction prohibiting these employees from serving trauma patients at Ascension."

drivebycomment 5y ago

> It said the broader case, in which ThedaCare argues that Ascension inappropriately group-recruited these employees, will go forward in court. That is insanity. The lawyer working for this crazy company ThedaCare needs to be disbarred, responsible for taking this insane position/argument and wasting everyone's time and money.

onion2k 5y ago
The lawyer working for this crazy company ThedaCare needs to be disbarred, responsible for taking this insane position/argument and wasting everyone's time and money. I don't know if it's the case in the US, but here in the UK if you bring a frivolous law suit it's very likely that you will not only lose but the cost of losing is that you have to pay all of the court costs, which includes paying the bills of the legal team of the person or company you sued. It's a very good way of deterring silly law suits. I would hope the same mechanism is available to the court in the US, and that Thedacare end up paying for their own lawyers, but Ascensions's lawyers too.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  It's also a very good way of preventing a small entity from suing a large one for anything but a sure thing; since, if they lose, they could wind up on the hook for legal fees that are way out of their price range.
  - zaarn 5y ago
    That's why german has standard rates for lawyers. You don't pay the other side's actual legal costs, you pay a standard rate of their legal costs. And since lawyers not on payroll are required to bill standard rate, your legal costs rarely exceed first court estimates (though you can ask for more if you had additional costs).
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  >I don't know if it's the case in the US, but here in the UK if you bring a frivolous law suit it's very likely that you will not only lose but the cost of losing is that you have to pay all of the court costs, which includes paying the bills of the legal team of the person or company you sued. It is most assuredly NOT the way of things normally in the US. It's possible to sue for legal costs in some circumstances, but it's absolutely not a built-in feature of the legal system.

thematrixturtle 5y ago

TL;DR if you're feeling out of the loop: last week, a hospital group in Wisconsin (Thedacare) successfully sued to stop 7 employees from quitting and going to another hospital (Ascension), essentially forcing them to keep working against their will. The PDF here lays out in painfully hilarious detail why the restraining order was bullshit, and it was duly overturned today. Longer version at NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/thedacare-lawsuit-wisconsin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/thedacare-lawsuit-wisc...

spuz 5y ago
Thedacare has not successfully sued anyone - a temporary injunction was granted. The injunction does not force the 7 employees to work.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  The economic system forces the employees to work at some location. Their skill set and the timetable make A and B the only reasonable options. The injunction removed A as a possibility. Therefore, the injunction required them to work at B. If an order, taken within the context of how the world works, leads to the employees being forced to work at ThedaCare, then it is an order forcing them to work at ThedaCare.
- nulbyte 5y ago
  Thedacare sued, successfully, in that they successfully initiated legal proceedings and are presently litigating their case. The verb sue means to initiate legal proceedings; it does not mean to prevail at such proceedings.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    The plain meaning of the term "sued successfully" means you won the lawsuit. That didn't happen. They got a (dubious!) injunction that did not last a single business day. That the judge granted said injunctions is INSANE on the face of it, but to say they "sued successfully" is incorrect.

ww520 5y ago

The seven ex-employees should sue ThedaCare and get punitive damage from ThedaCare. The punitive damage needs to be huge to send a message to any potential companies trying this trick again.

sleepingadmin 5y ago

>That day, they provided the details of their offers to ThedaCare management and requested a counteroffer. They received no response until December 28, when they were told by Interim Director of Cardiovascular Service Line Ron Schumaker that ThedaCare would not be making any counteroffer. As he put it, the short term expense of retaining the radiology technologists was not worth the long term expense, because if ThedaCare paid to keep these employees, it would have to offer raises to everyone. So they literally made the decision to not try to keep their staff because of $. Then made the decision to spend money in the lawsuit. But they also spent money going to the media which backfired on them. Afterall, everyone can see they were lying. Management clearly not performing to satisfactory levels.

ljm 5y ago
Now the cat is out of the bag, they will have spent a fortune on litigation, PR, and recruitment only to have to offer raises to anyone anyway. Whether they like it or not, they're on the record for not paying their staff enough and they'll surely be faced with more counter-offer situations. 'Penny-wise and pound-foolish' doesn't really carry the gravitas required to express the true enormity of leadership's stupidity on this one.
- sleepingadmin 5y ago
  >'Penny-wise and pound-foolish' doesn't really carry the gravitas required to express the true enormity of leadership's stupidity on this one. Very true. Mind you, this is the metric for Executive performance. A nurse's metrics on performance would be treating and helping patients right. This is how the executives are measured. They are 100% certainly going to flamingly fail here.
  - pooper 5y ago
    Does it matter though? I imagine nobody knows the name of the CXO or the board members. They could simply rename thedacare to Meta or something, right? I don't see how there is any justice here unless the CEO and the board go to prison.