An obstetrician-gynecologist who alleges he was wrongfully fired from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 2022 because he complained that his supervisor favored younger, female LGBTQ+ doctors as well as physicians of color on staff will have to take his claims before an arbitrator rather than a jury, a judge has ruled.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lia Martin issued her decision on Thursday in the hospital’s motion to compel arbitration of Dr. Richard Burwick’s claims. The judge also placed the lawsuit on hold pending the outcome of the arbitration and scheduled a status conference for July 15, 2026.
In their court papers, hospital lawyers maintained that Burwick’s April 2017 employment agreement contained a promise to arbitrate any work disputes.
Burwick was hired to work as a staff physician in the Cedars-Sinai Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and is board-certified in high-risk pregnancies. He was promoted four years later and, while at Cedars-Sinai, obtained funding for a landmark study on pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening medical condition that can occur during pregnancy.
After the 2020 George Floyd protests, a Black patient died at Cedars-Sinai and her husband became an advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement, later publicly accusing the hospital of racism, the suit states. In response, in 2021 Cedars-Sinai “hastily internally mandated that all departments in the hospital hire more underrepresented minorities, offering bonuses and monetary incentives for the hiring of non-Caucasian people,” the racial/age/gender discrimination suit brought in April 2024 alleges.
Burwick alleges his supervisor told him to interview “more Black and brown people” for fellowships regardless of whether they were qualified and that the plaintiff “protested the pressure to let applications of unqualified people through automatically if they appeared to be people of color.”
Burwick’s supervisor also openly favored younger, female, non-heterosexual doctors and employees, the suit alleges. The two other white male doctors in Burwick’s department who were LGBTQ+ were given leadership opportunities that were not offered to the plaintiff, the suit states.
The plaintiff further alleges his boss took away a $50,000 grant he had for research funding and gave it to a young, female LGBTQ+ physician who invested less time in Cedars-Sinai and its patients than Burwick did, the suit further contends.
Burwick says his supervisor told him in April 2022 that he was being terminated as of June 1 of that year and four days later, he was told to leave the premises and go on leave before he could pick up all of his personal items. The supervisor showed little concern for the well-being of Burwick’s high-risk pregnancy patients, some of whom were undergoing cancer treatments, the suit states.
Burwick also contends it was hard to find another job because interviewers believed the way Cedars-Sinai let him go indicated he may have done something wrong. About four months after Burwick’s termination, Cedars-Sinai hired a young LGBTQ+ doctor who performed no research, did no work at outreach sites and was less qualified than the plaintiff, the suit further states.