By Hank Russell
In a scathing response to Nassau Health Care Corporation’s recent frivolous lawsuit against her, former Nassau University Medical Center (NUMC) CEO Megan Ryan recently filed a Motion to Dismiss outlining what she said were significant deficiencies of both law and fact related to the claims made by the Nassau Health Care Corporation (NHCC).
The filing comes just days after Ms. Ryan’s legal team filed its full lawsuit against NHCC and its leaders individually, including Board Chairman Stuard Rabinowitz, for defamation and twelve other causes of action.
As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, Ryan is suing her former place of employment, claiming they did not adhere to the terms of her contract, they paid her less than her male counterparts and made her the subject of unfounded rumors. The complaint, which alleges breach of contract, gender-based pay discrimination, defamation and retaliation by NHCC, seeks damages as a result of Ms. Ryan’s wrongful termination and other actions of the defendants.
LILP also reported that the complaint was in response to a $10 million lawsuit filed by NUMC against Ryan in August, alleging a sweeping pattern of misconduct, self-enrichment, and deliberate sabotage that compromised the hospital’s operations, finances, and mission to serve Nassau County residents
According to the NUMC lawsuit, while serving simultaneously as CEO, chief legal officer, and chief compliance officer, Ryan abused her authority by enriching herself and other top administrators; sought reimbursement for a phantom trip to Chicago; ordered the destruction and wiping of hospital records; coordinated a mass resignation of senior leadership to destabilize operations; and directed NUMC to pursue meritless lawsuits against the State of New York at significant taxpayer expense, as reported in LILP.
Among other positions, the Motion to Dismiss outlines how Ryan’s decisions during her brief tenure as CEO are covered by the “business judgment rule,” and that NUMC failed to sufficiently plead her alleged breach of contract. The motion also makes clear, NUMC’s claims of “conversion,” which have been used in the press to suggest criminal theft of hospital resources, do not meet the requisite factual or legal standards under New York Law.
The motion also states, “The other wrongs of which NUMC accuses Ms. Ryan — purported destruction of data and orchestration of mass resignations — are alleged without any supporting facts…These allegations do not pass muster under CPLR 3211, much less under CPLR3016(b)’s more stringent pleading standard.”
LILP reached out to the NHCC. “Our complaint details egregious misconduct, including a $220,000 excess separation payment to Ryan, the destruction of records, and the coordinated resignation of the entire executive team — actions that left the hospital without leadership during a critical moment,” a NHCC spokesperson said. “These are not protected ‘business judgments’; they are deliberate acts of self-interest and abuse of authority. These actions are also contrary to NHCC’s written bylaws, which were duly promulgated by the previous Board.”
“Given the seriousness of these violations, which must now be accepted by the Court as factual, the former CEO faces an extraordinarily high hurdle to dismiss this case,” the NHCC spokesperson continued. “The motion is legally unsound, factually indefensible, and fundamentally at odds with the governance standards she was obligated to uphold.”
Nearly all NUMC executives, who resigned in the days after the state takeover of the hospital was advanced by the governor and the state legislature, have signed a public letter attesting that Ryan had nothing to do with their decisions to leave the hospital, according to the motion. Their statement is in direct contradiction to the repeated claims by the hospital’s leadership against Ryan.
“NHCC’s lawsuit against Ms. Ryan is a waste of the hospital resources that should be used for the benefit of NUMC’s patients, not for legal fees to torment someone who served with distinction under numerous boards of directors and CEOs for more than a decade,” said a spokesperson for Ryan. “It couldn’t be clearer that the accusations were hastily concocted to advance a deliberate scheme of retaliation against Ms. Ryan and to cover up the State’s Medicaid corruption.”
Ryan’s spokesperson said the NHCC “lack[s] factual support or fail[s] to meet even the basic proscribed legal standards. As we have said all along, Ms. Ryan looks forward to clearing her name and being made whole for the harm NHCC and its leadership have caused her.”
In response, the NHCC spokesperson called the motion “ill-conceived and contrary to established legal principles. We are confident it will not withstand scrutiny. As a matter of law, when deciding a motion to dismiss, the Court must accept all well-pled allegations in NHCC’s verified complaint as true. … We look forward to proving in court that her actions were a blatant breach of duty and a failure to act as a responsible steward of a safety-net hospital entrusted with public funds.”