St. Myers v. Dignity Health CA3

I. BACKGROUND

Between August 2011 and September 2014, St. Myers worked as a nurse practitioner at a Dignity Health facility known as the Mark Twain Medical Center (Mark Twain). “During the three years she worked there, she submitted over 50 complaints about working conditions.” (St. Myers v. Dignity Health (2019) 44 Cal.App.5th 301, 305 (St. Myers).) She also was the subject of several anonymous complaints. According to one, she and a co-worker, Dr. Mills, engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct at Mark Twain. And according to another, she and Dr. Mills were drug addicts, engaged in prescription drug trafficking, and worked while impaired. Both complaints, which were made in 2012, were later found unsubstantiated. (Id. at p. 306.) In part based on these complaints, St. Myers resigned from Dignity Health in 2014. A little over a year later, in late 2015, she sued Dignity Health and one of its contractors, Optum360, claiming they unlawfully retaliated against her following her complaints and constructively terminated her. (St. Myers, supra, 44 Cal.App.5th at p. 305.) In her complaint, St. Myers noted, among other things, the two anonymous complaints in 2012. She asserted that the…