Court Opinion

ID: 9667432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:45:23.176573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:37.786780
License: Public Domain

E. C. Penzien, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in the above matter. The opinion in essence holds that the trial judge was correct in ordering the state to reemploy plaintiff Jones without any showing on the part of the plaintiffs that the state erred in discharging plaintiff Jones and conceding that a full administrative hearing was not required by statute or by due process prior to her dismissal. Thus, the state is mandated to reemploy plaintiff employee in an extremely sensitive position when the execu*48tive branch of government has made a determination that plaintiff employee’s performance in that position endangered the life of another human being. The sole justification asserted for this judicial interference in the executive function is that plaintiff employee is a divorced mother with no savings but with a nine-year-old son for whom she provides the sole financial support. It is further asserted that if the state is permitted to discharge plaintiff employee, plaintiff employee would have difficulty obtaining employment elsewhere as a registered nurse.
It cannot be logically argued that the plaintiff employee would not suffer irreparable harm in a factual sense. But the harm thus suffered cannot be compared to the harm suffered by the patient. Whether or not the patient’s life was lost due to plaintiff employee’s neglect is a matter which will be finally determined after the full evidentiary hearing which the majority concedes may occur after dismissal. In the meantime, the judiciary should refrain from interfering with the executive’s initial determination that potential danger to patients necessitates plaintiff employee’s discharge.
In addition, the type of harm which plaintiff employee will suffer is not the kind of harm which the courts have traditionally looked for in determining whether or not to grant the extraordinary relief provided by an injunction. The majority opinion in Sampson v Murray, 415 US 61; 94 S Ct 937; 39 L Ed 2d 166 (1974), accurately describes the traditional view. If that were not the usual approach to these problems, injunctive relief would become the ordinary remedy and subsequent money damage awards would become the extraordinary remedy. Plaintiff employee would *49suffer harm and that harm may in fact be irreparable. It is, however, no greater than the harm that is suffered by a widow who becomes destitute and is forced on public relief when a land contract vendee stops making payments to her, claiming that the contract has been fully paid or for some other reason. Are we then to order the vendee to continue to make payments to the destitute widow until the matter can be fully heard in court or will we follow the traditional approach and say that, in spite of the harm suffered by the widow, she must wait until a full hearing and then collect whatever money is due her? In this judge’s humble opinion, we should resist implementation of the old adage that "hard cases make bad law”.
Secondly, in this case, the plaintiffs did not show, and the majority opinion does not require that the plaintiffs demonstrate, any probability of success on the merits before the issuance of the injunction. That, likewise, has been a traditional requirement for the issuance of injunctions.
I would vote to reverse and set aside the injunction.