In early December, the Michigan Supreme Court issued an order denying leave to appeal in McNeill-Marks v. MyMichigan Medical Center Alma,* a case involving fundamental questions regarding the meaning and application of Michigan’s Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA). The case was filed by a former hospital employee, Tammy McNeill-Marks, who alleged that her employment was terminated after she engaged in protected activity under the WPA.
McNeill-Marks had a personal protection order against the mother of her adopted children (“Fields”), who had previously threatened McNeill-Marks and her children. After McNeill-Marks encountered Fields at the hospital (because Fields had been admitted as a patient), McNeill-Marks called her personal attorney to notify him that Fields was at her workplace. Later that day, while she was still admitted to the hospital, Fields was served with a renewed personal protection order. Suspecting that McNeill-Marks was responsible, Fields complained to the hospital, and the hospital terminated McNeill-Marks’s employment for violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the hospital’s policies.
For McNeill-Marks to succeed on her WPA claim, her call to her personal attorney would have had to qualify as a “report” to a “public body.” In an earlier published decision, the Michigan Court of Appeals held that McNeill-Marks’s personal attorney qualified as a “public body” simply because the personal attorney was a member of...
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