A marketing employee of a nursing home observed her supervisor and another coworker forging documents to indicate that staffers of the nursing home had received dementia-specific training, which they had not. The facility was a dementia-specific facility. The employee reported the matter internally to a coworker, who reported it to HR, and both were fired. 

1. What were the legal issues in this case? What did the Supreme Court decide?

2. This decision focuses on the first two elements of a public policy claim. Why does the court conclude that these were satisfied in this case?

3. Should it make any difference in terms of legal protection whether the “whistle is blown” internally within the organization or externally? Why or why not?

4. What arguments are made in Justice Mansfield’s dissenting opinion? Do you agree that the effect of this opinion will be to make employers in Iowa potentially liable whenever they discharge employees who have expressed safety or other public policy related concerns to coworkers? Why or why not?