Court Opinion

ID: 9689521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:38:26.567888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:49.774632
License: Public Domain

JOHN E. PARRISH, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority opinion relies on Kirk v. Mercy Hospital Tri-County, 851 S.W.2d 617 (Mo.App.1993), as authority for reversing the judgment of the trial court. The trial court, in Kirk, held that there was no public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine in Missouri. Id,, at 619. This court held that this was error; that there is a public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine. The judgment in Kirk was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.
In this case the trial court acknowledged that there is a public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine. It concluded that Freeman Health System, Ms. Hughes’ employer, had not violated that policy. The issue in this appeal is not the issue that was before this court in Kirk. The issue in this case is whether, based on its facts, the public policy exception requires that the judgment be reversed.1
*802Although Ms. Hughes contends she was discharged for failing to take actions that would have violated public policy and that her failure to make an addendum to a patient’s chart in order to fully document what occurred in providing patient care was the cause for her discharge, she has not specified with any particularity how the making of an addendum to the chart would have violated public policy. The record reflects that when Ms. Hughes learned that the correct procedure for recording additional information concerning what patient care was provided was to prepare an addendum to the chart, she agreed to do so. However, she did not prepare an addendum. The record does not reflect why she failed to complete the patient record by means of an addendum to the patient’s chart.
Ms. Hughes received eight reprimands from March 1997 to September 2004. The final reprimand, per the personnel records of her employer, resulted in her discharge. The employer’s records state that the reason for her discharge was failure to render proper care to a patient on August 30, 2004, and failure to accurately inform physicians of the patient’s condition. I do not believe that the record before this court demonstrates there was a factual question that would permit a finding that Ms. Hughes’ discharge was contrary to public policy. I would affirm the judgment.

. Another difference between this case and Kirk is that Kirk was a service letter case. See § 290.140, RSMo 2000. The record in this case does not reflect that Ms. Hughes requested a service letter.