Roman v. McGuire Hospital, 2015 Pa. Super. 232 (Pa. Super. Ct. Nov. 9, 2015)

The Pennsylvania Superior Court expands common law wrongful discharge to include retaliation pursuant to the Prohibition of Excessive Overtime in Healthcare Act.

The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed a judgment in favor of a former hospital employee who was awarded more than $120,000 following a bench trial. The employee was a direct care worker at the hospital and was terminated after she refused to work mandatory overtime on three occasions. Following her termination, she filed a lawsuit asserting a claim for wrongful termination, alleging that she was terminated in retaliation for refusing to work overtime and that her termination “offended the public policy of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” as articulated in the Prohibition of Excessive Overtime in Healthcare Act (Act 102). On appeal, the hospital argued that the court did not have subject matter over the plaintiff’s claim as the Department of Labor would be the exclusive agency where the plaintiff could seek relief for an alleged violation of Act 102. Although the court recognized that the Department of Labor was tasked to promulgate regulations to implement the Act and proposed rules were proposed and published for comment (which would include a procedure to provide a complaint and hearing process), the rules had not yet been adopted. From this the court noted that “Act 102 contains nothing that allows for an employee in [plaintiff’s] position to seek any remedy or even what administrative procedure [plaintiff] should follow to recover from [the hospital’s] for its actions.”

Based upon this decision, employers should expect additional attempts from plaintiffs’ attorneys to further expand the theories of public policy violation in support of wrongful discharge claims in Pennsylvania.

Case Law Alerts, 1st Quarter, January 2016

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