Raymond v. U.S.A. Healthcare Center-Fort Dodge, No. C 05-3074-MWB.

• Court: United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. Northern District of Iowa
• Writing for the Court: Bennett
• Citation: 468 F.Supp.2d 1047
• Parties: Terry R. RAYMOND, Plaintiff, v. U.S.A. HEALTHCARE CENTER-FORT DODGE, L.L.C., and the parent corporation U.S.A. Healthcare, Inc., Defendants.
• Docket Number: No. C 05-3074-MWB.
• Decision Date: 22 December 2006

Page 1047

468 F.Supp.2d 1047 Terry R. RAYMOND, Plaintiff,
v.
U.S.A. HEALTHCARE CENTER-FORT DODGE, L.L.C., and the parent corporation U.S.A. Healthcare, Inc., Defendants. No. C 05-3074-MWB. United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Central Division. December 22, 2006.

Page 1048

Jill M. Zwagerman, Fiedler & Newkirk, P.L.C., Johnston, IA, Mark D. Sherinian, Sherinian & Walker, PC, West Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiff.

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Amy M. Bjork, Dennis Wayne Johnson, Edwin N. McIntosh, Dorsey & Whitney, Des Moines, IA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

BENNETT, Chief Judge.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
                 I. INTRODUCTION .............................................. 1049
                 A. Factual Background ..................................... 1049
                 B. Procedural Background .................................. 1051
                 II. LEGAL ANALYSIS ............................................ 1052
                 A. Standards For Summary Judgment ......................... 1052
                 B. Arguments Of The Parties ............................... 1054
                 1. U.S.A. Healthcare's initial argument ................ 1054
                 2. Raymond's resistance ................................ 1055
                 3. U.S.A. Healthcare's reply ........................... 1055
                 C. Discussion ............................................. 1056
                 1. Elements of a retaliation claim under Iowa law ...... 1056
                 2. Raymond's showing on the required elements .......... 1060
                III. CONCLUSION ................................................ 1062
                

Was a nurse legitimately fired for an incident in which she failed to handle properly the discovery of morphine missing from a medication cart or in violation of Iowa public policy in retaliation for filing a workers' compensation claim for a wrist injury? That is the central dispute in this case, in which no federal claims remain before the court, and whether or not there are genuine issues of material fact to keep that dispute alive for jury determination is the question that animates the present ruling on the defendants' motion for summary judgment.

I. INTRODUCTION A. Factual Background

The court will not attempt here an exhaustive dissertation on the undisputed and disputed facts in this case. Rather, the court will set forth sufficient of the facts, both undisputed and disputed, to put in context the parties' arguments concerning the defendants' motion for summary judgment.

The parties agree that plaintiff Terry R. Raymond, a Registered Nurse (R.N.), began working for defendant U.S.A. Heathcare Center—Fort Dodge and its parent corporation, defendant U.S.A. Healthcare, Inc. (collectively, "U.S.A.Healthcare"), in August 2001. Raymond worked first as a unit manager, then as a "floor nurse, RN supervisor." She worked in the latter position until she was terminated on February 21, 2005.

In November 2002, Raymond suffered a wrist injury in the course of her employment with U.S.A. Healthcare, for which she subsequently filed a workers' compensation claim. After working with pain for some time, Raymond and her physician decided that surgery was appropriate for this injury. At some point in the processing of Raymond's workers' compensation claim, Raymond asked the Director of Nursing, Greg Seward, to write a letter on her behalf to her insurer about her inability to return to work. Seward was cooperative, wrote the letter, and did not give Raymond any difficulty about it. Raymond

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was off work for four months recovering from her surgery.

While Raymond was off work recovering from her surgery, she contacted Seward to suggest that she could come in to work a four-hour shift if another nurse was also on duty. However, owing to her restrictions, Raymond could not perform CPR at that time, which she agrees is an important skill for someone in her position. U.S.A. Healthcare declined to let Raymond return to work a four-hour shift under those circumstances, and Raymond does not complain about that decision. In contrast, when Raymond was released to return to work after surgery without such restrictions, U.S.A. Healthcare allowed her to return to work. U.S.A. Healthcare paid Raymond's workers' compensation claim and granted Raymond any accommodations that she requested for her wrist injury, with the exception of declining to allow her to work a four-hour shift when she could not perform CPR.

U.S.A. Healthcare had various policies in place concerning "narcotics counts" for drugs on a unit's medication cart and also had policies and notification procedures if a discrepancy in the count was discovered. Raymond asserts that she was not aware at the time of her employment of all of those policies. Raymond agrees, however, that the policies provide that both the "oncoming" nurse and the "off-going" nurse at a shift change are supposed to conduct a "narcotics count" of drugs on a unit's medication cart and that the keys to the medication care are not supposed to be exchanged without this count.

On the morning of February 19, 2005, eleven days after Raymond's return to work, another nurse, Lisa Irving, came in to start her shift, and requested the keys for the medication cart from Raymond. Raymond was working to complete paperwork at the conclusion of her own overnight shift, so Raymond gave Irving the keys, and Irving began a "narcotics count" on the medication cart without Raymond's assistance. U.S.A. Healthcare contends that the procedures followed by Raymond and Irving were contrary to its policies. Irving discovered that the morphine count was "off," although the parties dispute precisely the amount of the discrepancy. Upon discovery of the discrepancy, Raymond and Irving began looking for the missing morphine. Irving found 2 ccs of the missing morphine in a syringe discarded in the garbage that had been sitting on the medication cart. Raymond believed that this syringe had been inadvertently thrown away and recorded it as "accidentally wasted" on an Individual Narcotic Record for the patient to whom she had been giving the morphine. Irving and Raymond continued to look for more missing morphine, including checking the medication cart to see if any missing morphine was "jammed" in the cart. No other morphine was discovered. The parties dispute the amount, if any, of additional morphine that was still missing. It was not until some ten hours later, at about 4:00 p.m. on February 19, 2005, that Raymond contacted Seward to notify him of the missing morphine. However, U.S.A. Healthcare's policy required that the Director of Nursing be notified "immediately" if a drug discrepancy was discovered.

On February 20 and 21, after learning of the drug count discrepancy, Seward interviewed the three nurses involved in the narcotics counts at the beginning and end of Raymond's shift on February 18-19, Nurses Irving, Connie Just, and Raymond. On February 21, 2005, following Seward's interviews, Seward and Craig Bell, the Administrator at U.S.A. Healthcare, met with Raymond. During the meeting, Raymond was terminated. The only reasons given for terminating Raymond were the events

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and problems surrounding the morphine shortage.

B. Procedural Background

Following her termination, Raymond filed suit against U.S.A. Healthcare Center — Fort Dodge and U.S.A. Healthcare, Inc., in Iowa District Court¹ asserting discharge in violation of public policy pursuant to IOWA CODE § 135C.46 (retaliation for "whistle-blowing") and discharge in violation of public policy pursuant to IOWA CODE § 85.18 (retaliation for filing a workers' compensation claim). After the defendants answered Raymond's original petition on May 18, 2005, Raymond was granted leave to amend her petition on October 24, 2005, to add, as Counts III and IV of her petition, respectively, claims of disability discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., and the Iowa Civil Rights Act (ICRA), IOWA CODE CH. 216. After Raymond injected the federal ADA claim into this litigation, U.S.A. Healthcare removed this action to this federal court on November 8, 2006. U.S.A. Healthcare filed in this court its answer to Raymond's amended petition, now styled a Complaint in federal court, on November 14, 2005, denying Raymond's claims.

On September 21, 2006, Raymond moved to dismiss without prejudice Counts I, III, and IV, or her Complaint, but to retain her claim of wrongful termination in violation of public policy pursuant to IOWA CODE CH. 85, the workers' compensation retaliation claim. See Plaintiffs Motion To Dismiss Disability Claims And Violation Of Public Policy [Claim] Under Iowa Code [§] 135C.46 (docket no. 14). U.S.A. Healthcare filed no response to that motion, but now states in a footnote in its brief in support of its own subsequent motion for summary judgment that it does not resist Raymond's motion to dismiss her claims in Counts I, III, and IV. See Defendants' Brief In Support Of Motion For Summary Judgment (docket no. 15-3) at 2 n. 1. Therefore, the court will grant Raymond's motion to dismiss all of her claims except her state-law claim of retaliation for filing a workers' compensation claim.

No party has suggested that the court should now relinquish supplemental jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c), despite the dismissal of the federal claim upon which federal removal jurisdiction was based. Although the court has contemplated such a course sua sponte, it has decided not to dismiss or remand the case to state court, because the litigation in this court is advanced to the point of dispositive motions, trial is set to begin in this court on March 26 2007, the remaining state-law claim does not involve any novel or complex issues, and it is unlikely that the parties could obtain as timely a trial date, if required, in state court, were this court to remand this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). See, e.g., Saeemodarae v. Mercy Health Servs., 456 F.Supp.2d 1021, 1042-43...