John Murphy, MD, an OB-GYN, has filed a lawsuit against Bend, Ore.-based St. Charles Health system, alleging it forced him into closing his practice, The Lund Report reported Oct. 7.
The lawsuit alleges that the health system tried to “sabotage” his practice by poaching one of his colleagues and that it discriminated against Dr. Murphy by not hiring him, despite a previous understanding that it would do so, according to the report. Dr. Murphy has since decided to close his practice.
Oregon has a deficit of maternal care, according to the report. In 2015, St. Charles sought to address this by opening a women’s health center with Dr. Murphy as the lead OB-GYN. In 2016, it closed the practice after approximately one year, but has since reopened the practice and hired one of Dr. Murphy’s former colleagues.
The lawsuit seeks more than $3.7 million in economic and noneconomic damages, and makes note of Dr. Murphy’s popularity within the health system and the community at large. It cites the fact that Dr. Murphy was named “Best OB” in a reader poll from 2018 through 2024 by BendNest, a parenting magazine, as well as the health system’s enthusiasm about his experience in a previously published Lund Report article.
However, in 2016, when the women’s center was closed due to staffing issues, Dr. Murphy made financial concessions in a “departure agreement” on the premise that he could be rehired by St. Charles if the center was later reopened.
He then returned to his own practice, where he employed two other physicians, Aleksander Robles, MD, and Erin LeGrand, DO. According to the report, the lawsuit says that Dr. Robles left the practice in 2023, the same year that St. Charles reopened the shuttered women’s center. It then asserts that the reopening of the women’s center marked an effort by St. Charles to “consolidate local market share” in women’s services, including driving business away from Dr. Murphy’s practice.
According to the lawsuit, St. Charles diverged from its own standard hiring practices by hiring Dr. LeGrand, also paying her a salary and bonus “far exceeding” the going rates in the region. In the lawsuit, Dr. Murphy claims that the system hired Dr. LeGrand with the intention of putting him out of business, as her departure resulted in an “unmanageable workload, extreme stress and sleep deprivation” for him. Dr. Murphy claims he asked St. Charles to be rehired at the women’s center but the officials refused.
He goes on to allege that he was not rehired at St. Charles because the system’s management had decided to pursue an “exclusively female roster” of OB-GYNs.
According to its website, all of the providers at St. Charles’ women’s center are women. Most of the OB-GYNs in the region are also women, according to The Lund Report.
St. Charles did offer Dr. Murphy a part-time contract, but the lawsuit claims the pay was very low and that the position was only offered to “provide cover for its discriminatory refusal” to hire Dr. Murphy.
Further, the lawsuit says that, amid his struggles to sustainably maintain his practice, St. Charles agreed to let one of its midwives assist him with deliveries but only made her available 20% of the time. It cites this as further evidence that the system was trying to create the appearance that it was working to accommodate Dr. Murphy, while, “in fact, it was intentionally sabotaging his practice.”
St. Charles has not responded to the allegations in court and a spokesperson declined to provide comment to The Lund Report, citing pending litigation. Dr. Murphy and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment by the publication.
