negligent

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A lot has been made of the recent district court decision on legal job protections for qualifying medical marijuana patients.

But the decision has another piece that has been overlooked and which may cause employers some heartburn as well.

The “Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress” cause of action has been on life support for…

Some cases are easy to explain in a short blog post.

This is not one of them.

But a new Connecticut Appellate Court case released today, Grasso v. Connecticut Hospice, Inc. (download here)  has too many nuggets of information to pass up.  It is an example to employers about how cases never truly seem to be over in this litigious climate and that details are important — even in settlement agreements. 

Background Facts

Here are the background facts:

  • Plaintiff employee worked as an employee for the hospice from 1998-2010. 
  • In 2009, she filed two complaints with OSHA regarding some defective chairs.  The administration ordered the hospice to repair the chairs.
  • Later that year, the Plaintiff then filed a whistleblower complaint with OSHA claiming that she had been retaliated against and harassed since the filing of the OSHA complaints. The administration found “reasonable cause” to believe a violation had occurred.
  • Thus in January 2010, the Hospice and Plaintiff entered into a settlement agreement on the whistleblower complaint where she worked as a part time employee in two offices.  The agreement contained a release of future claims for events that occurred prior to the execution of the agreement.
  • End of story, right? Wrong. One week later, the Plaintiff-Employee wrote to the company and alleged that they were breaching the settlement agreement.  Later that year, she quits.
  • You know what happens next, right? She filed a six-count complaint in Superior Court alleging a whistleblower violation, breach of the settlement agreement, breach of the employee handbook and claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress.   The defendant filed a counterclaim asking for declaratory judgment on the release she signed.  The Superior Court granted summary judgment to the employer.

The legal rulings

You’ve heard of the negligent hiring case.

Should we now get ready for "negligent exposure" cases?

A Connecticut Superior Court recently allowed a claim of negligence to proceed by a subordinate against a supervisor, on the grounds that the supervisor drew the subordinate into a dispute with another employee, exposing the subordinate to the…