Tonya Martin & Mareeka Rice v. Ridgeway NRF Operations LLC, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky denied Defendants’ partial motion to dismiss Tonya Martin’s claims arising from her termination by a healthcare facility. The Court held that Kentucky’s healthcare whistleblower statute, KRS § 216B.165, does not require an employee’s report of patient-safety concerns to be initiated without employer prompting. The Court also denied requests to certify the statutory question to the Kentucky Supreme Court or for interlocutory appeal.

Holdings

1. Section 216B.165(3) does not require a protected report or activity to be initiated by the employee. An employee may be protected when the employee makes a good-faith report, disclosure, or divulgence of patient-safety concerns in response to an employer questionnaire or other external stimulus.
2. Martin adequately pleaded a claim under Kentucky Revised Statutes § 216B.165(3), through § 446.070, because she alleged that she reported patient-safety violations in good faith and was terminated in retaliation.
3. Martin adequately pleaded a common-law wrongful-termination claim under Kentucky's public-policy exception to at-will employment.
4. The court declined to certify whether § 216B.165 requires an employee to initiate a qualifying report because Kentucky law supplied a reasonably clear and principled basis for decision and the issue was not sufficiently new or unsettled.
5. The court declined to certify the order for interlocutory appeal because Defendants did not establish the statutory requirements or exceptional circumstances warranting such an appeal.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Martin plausibly stated a claim under Kentucky Revised Statutes § 216B.165(3), brought through § 446.070, when her alleged patient-safety report was made in response to an employer questionnaire rather than on her own initiative.
2. Whether Martin plausibly stated a common-law wrongful-termination claim under Kentucky's public-policy exception to at-will employment based on alleged retaliation for reporting patient-safety concerns.
3. Whether the court should certify the statutory-interpretation question to the Kentucky Supreme Court under Kentucky Rule of Appellate Procedure 50.
4. Whether the court should certify its nonfinal order for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).

Disposition

other