Court Upholds Termination Of Employee Because Of Rude Banter During Traffic Stop?

why would you fire your employer?

Read the story.... shes a nurse and threatened him if he became one of her patients.

I think the cop took it a bit far. It was a power play.

The threat is open to interpretation.

It would be far different if she was a CPA.

did the cop have to call her work? No. Did he have every right to call her work? Yes. Is it her fault that he did? Absofreakinglutely.

She exercised her right to free speech when she insulted the police office (who, incidentally, legitimately caught her breaking the law -- that fact seems to be getting neglected). He, in turn, exercised his right to free speech when he called her work to report what she said. The First Amendment might allow you to say (almost) anything you want without going to jail, it doesn't guarantee you a right to a job if your employer doesn't like what you say. If I spent my time off work running around giving racist hate speeches or blogging about how I hate my bosses, I might not go to jail, but I'd definitely get fired.

One of the posters on TTAC summed it up pretty well -- what if the situation was reversed and the officer told her "I hope I never get called to an emergency at your home"? The implication there being that he wouldn't assist her in that robbery/assault/rape/whatever, just like her statement to him implied she wouldn't care for him properly if he was ever her patient. The First Amendment might keep him from going to jail for saying something like that, but I bet his superiors at the police department would have an issue with it, and she'd have every right to file a complaint about it. Well he didn't say anything like that, she did. And he filed a complaint, just like she would have were the roles reversed.

The officer didn't fire her. Her employer fired her. She got her free speech moment, she got fired. Welcome to the real world, where you have plenty of freedom, just not enough common sense to deal with the consequences of having it.

LOL... You have a point

Cops beat and shoot innocent people every day and you seldom will see them get fired. They are usually put on "paid administrative leave" while the investigation (by their own people) is under way. Then, once the paperwork is falsified and the truth stashed, the cop is given his job back and probably a medal for being "brave."

and we never landed on the moon, aliens are among us, Elvis is still alive, etc. If you're done going off on conspiracy theory tangents that have absolutely nothing to do with what happened here, maybe we could get back on topic.

"You obviously don't have friends or family on the force..."

Really? I don't? That'd be news to my father in law. He retired from the Sheriff's department. But hey, it's the internet, who cares about truth when we can all be "former physicians" like LJ745. Go back to your conspiracy theories, boys, continue to hate "The Man". There's no such thing as honest cops, they're all out to get us, and it's all their fault when we break the law and get ourselves in more trouble. We should shoot them all between the eyes. Blah blah blah. I'm done arguing with you, you two idiots deserve each other.

well, I'm sorry if by your own admission you come from a family of crooked cops. If it's ok with you I'm going to refrain from painting all police officers with the stained brush of your family. A lot of them, like my father in law, served with integrity, even if your family doesn't.

JRobUSC

I really don't care if you buy the M.D. or not. My typos have nothing to do with intellect and everything to do with being in a hurry. Your ad hominem attacks do nothing to refute the validity of my points so try again. I think that bringing up typos as a means of "proof" of anything went out of style about a decade ago. But, if you need to act like a child to feel better about yourself that is just fine with me.

I had a successful career as an interventional radiologist and now I am self-employed in the computer industry serving the medical profession. I have had my own personal run-in with misguided cops and can speak from experience that they ask questions later rather than sooner. Their idiotic mistake with my identify nearly cost me my life when an overzealous but under-intelligent "detective" nearly shot me in the face coming out of my home several years ago. What happened to that cop you ask? What happened to the cop who nearly killed me and who helped his buddies kick me around a little before figuring out that they had mistaken me for someone else? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! HE STILL CARRIES A GUN! THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A SECOND!

I could not care less what you think because you clearly are incapable of performing such a feat. It seems that you and the officer in this story both need to be permanently removed from the gene pool. Bottom line, nothing the nurse did should have cost her her job as she did not injure a patient, the officer was not a patient at the time of the exchange, and she was not at work at the time. I hope the same thing happens to you.

LJ, for one, I'm not the one who called you out for typos. I doubted your credentials not because of your spelling, but because of how quickly you turned into a cross between NWA and Body Count with your "shoot the cop between the eyes" posts. I may only know a few cops, but I have a LOT of doctor friends, and that kind of hatespeak is not something I've ever heard from any doctor I know. Especially not on a public forum. And honestly whether you are or were a doctor is completely irrelevant in this case. Your viewpoint isn't the way it is because you were a doctor. It's the way it is because you had a bad experience with the police, and that bad experience has tainted your viewpoint. You're no longer impartial, and that's understandable. BUT if you can't separate emotion from an issue then you can't make rational, impartial decisions about it. I'm sure you're familiar with that concept, it's the same reason it's considered unethical for doctors to treat family members. What happened to you is not indicative of ALL police officers, just like your viewpoint is not indicative of ALL doctors (or frankly most people period). You can accept that or not accept it, it's still true. In this case the officer didn't HAVE to call the nurses HR department. And the hospital didn't HAVE to fire her. But they were both certainly within their RIGHTS to do so, just as the nurse was within her rights to insult the officer after she got caught breaking the law. Had she simply decided to be an adult and exercise a DIFFERENT right (like her "right to remain silent") instead of her right to free speech, guess what? She'd still have a job. She chose which right she wanted to exercise. The officer chose his too, and so did the hospital. They're the ones who fired her. Not the officer she insulted and/or threatened after she got caught breaking the law.

JRobUSC,

By the way, if you read carefully, the suit in this case is against the cop and not against the hospital. My guess is that she will sue or already has sued the hospital. The nurses union is very strong, so that will be one hell of a fight and my guess is that the hospital will end up settling for a very large sum of money.

F@#!ing cops. This is why I am self-employed. No one is going to tell me that what I say to some A@#hole writing me a ticket in a speed trap instead of investigating and solving real crime. I hope the nurse sues everyone involved and makes their lives as miserable as possible. I have no doubt the nurses union is going to back her up here and take this all the way. Finally, I hope the cop gets fired as well for being a full-blown MFing A-hole.

So the cop basically ended her ability to make a living because he can't take a little rude talking. Sounds like he is the one with the problem and if I were her, I'd put a bullet between his eyes.

"No one is going to tell me that what I say to some A@#hole writing me a ticket in a speed trap instead of investigating and solving real crime."

The #1 cause of non-disease related death in the U.S. is car accidents. The nurse was speeding, she got caught, here's your ticket. Take it and move on. The police office didn't make her speed. When I get a speeding ticket, who's fault is it? Mine. I imagine your point of view would be a little different if you or a loved one had ever been involved in a serious accident, though maybe not -- based on your comments, you'd probably be the cause of the accident.

"Sounds like he is the one with the problem and if I were her, I'd put a bullet between his eyes."

Seriously. You have a positive boost number for this comment. Just... unbelievable. This site makes me weep for society. If it were my site I'd ban you, and tell you I hope you enjoy your right to free speech and your inability to deal with having that right. I guess you're lucky it's not my site.

JRobUSC,

Unintentional injury causes over 100,000 deaths per year in the U.S. Over those, 40,000 are MVC's while the other 60,000 or so are due to falls and accidental poisoning.

Now, speed is a factor in only about 40% of those deaths, so that is 16,000. Which means that you are more likely to die from falling or from accidental poisoning than you are from a speed-related traffic accident.

I can't blame the nurse, the cops job is about taxing us as opposed to protecting us, Something is wrong here, its no wonder the nurse was frustrated, as a democracy we should only ticket dangerous drivers, cops are told to issue tickets to make $$, and it's not like she beat or killed someone, cops do this all the time and still have there jobs.

You are right on the money truckman. This was a "speed trap" which means the speed limit was artificially low so that the cops could trap more drivers and make more money. Speed traps are about money and not safety.

The NMA will tell you anybody who asks two things about driving:
1. The speed limit on any road should be set at the speed 85% of drivers drive at on that particular road. This is the safest method of assessing speed limits. This is not the method used in speed traps.
2. Speed is not what causes accidents, but rather variations is speeds. This is why putting different speed limits for trucks and cars on highways has caused accidents and not avoided them. Differences in motorists speeds are what cause accidents and there is plenty of data to back that up.

JRobUSC

I happen to have be an MD and worked as a physician for some time before starting a different career. This nurse's life is now over and depending on how long she has been doing her job, she may never work again.

The point is that this asshole of a cop decided to ruin her life because she made a comment he did not like. She was angry to say that least, but I have never witnessed any medical professional, no matter how much they despise a patient, provide inferior care for that reason. She was just being an ass and he got her fired for it because he thinks he is some holier-than-thou law enforcer. Fact is, he should be removed from his job (dead or alive).

The officer should be removed from his job dead or alive? And you say this AFTER you said if you were her you'd put a bullet between his eyes??? You've never witnessed a health care provider give substandard care to someone they don't like (because, of course, you were a doctor), but apparently you HAVE witnessed cops just killing all kinds of innocent people and getting away with it with coverups? Ridiculous. Seriously. I'm sorry, but the sheer ignorance of everything you have said and continue to say make it impossible to carry on an intelligent conversation, and I'm not interested in having a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

"I happen to have be an MD" "She was angry to say that least" Not buying the MD bit, your comments demonstrate a lack of intellect.

dead or alive may be a little over the top but I must agree with you, and yes in most cases cops do get away with murder, literally, and sometimes they get in trouble when they are justified in defending themselves or others, there is little justice, this cop was a little baby and deserved a swift kick in the head for his little power trip, cops are just crooked politicians pawns, IE tax man... They are easily brainwashed into thinking that they are special and have superior driving skills so they justify why they can speed and why the others need tickets, hypocritical! There must be a lot of cops on this blog,lol my advice to you, you work for us! Look at the bigger picture, stop robbing the people that you profess to protect! If it were someone else robbing us you would be throwing them in jail!

I was referring to cops to think for themselves more and stop listening to the politicians that mandate the slow speed limits and speed traps as a revenue cash cow, or I should be angrier at the politicians that tell the cops what to think and do.

Cops Suck!!

That is what scares me about some of the posters on this site.

The level of Blind Ignorance displayed is staggering, worse still is the level of positive boosts these cretinous commenters got.

Well put.

So now it's a problem to have a 9.3% profit margin? GE made virtually the same profit percentage, and famously pays almost no corporate tax either. Microsoft post a 31% profit margin last quarter...yet they warrant no mention from you? What is your complaint exactly?

May I suggest that you figure out how capitalism works, and apply that knowledge to your advantage? It is fruitless to carp about fundamental unfairness in the tax code; too many lobbyists and lawmakers in bed together for you and I to ever do anything about that.

My 401k is in petrochemical funds. I hope Exxon continues to make 9.3 percent profit so I can still afford to buy gas when I retire and have to tap that Exxon-fattened 401k.

This isn't rocket science.

CrunchyCajun,

I also don't care what you think. Buy it or not, it makes no difference to me. I know the truth and that is all that matters. Why would I care about your opinion? You are clearly developmentally delayed.