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William T. v. Truman Medical Center10/30/2001
Appeal From: Circuit Court of Jackson County, Hon. David W. Shinn
Opinion Vote: AFFIRMED.
Howard and Hardwick, JJ., concur.
Opinion:
William T. Hensen sued Truman Medical Center for tortiously interfering with his employment relationship with REN Corporation-USA. His wife, Jeanie Hensen, also sued Truman for loss of consortium. A jury awarded $250,000 in actual damages to William Hensen and awarded $50,000 in actual damages to Jeanie Hensen. Truman appeals. It asserts that the circuit court erred in denying its motion for a directed verdict or motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict because the Hensens did not make a submissible case on their tortious interference and loss of consortium claims. We affirm the circuit court's judgment.
The evidence established that in 1995 REN contracted with Truman to operate and to staff Truman's acute care dialysis unit. William Hensen had worked as a nurse for Truman for 13 years. Desiring to continue working in Truman's acute dialysis unit, Hensen terminated his employment with Truman in 1996 and began working for REN so that it could assign him to Truman's acute dialysis unit. REN understood that this was the basis for Hensen's accepting REN's employment, and REN complied with Hensen's desires by assigning him to Truman's unit.
On April 8, 1996, a female patient complained to Truman's staff that Hensen had raped and sodomized her while she was receiving dialysis at Truman's acute dialysis unit. Truman investigated the complaint but decided that it could not determine whether the patient's allegations were factual.
Investigators discovered, however, that three Truman employees had reported that Hensen used what Truman labeled as "inappropriate language" and made "inappropriate comments about sexual topics in the workplace." Truman officials decided that the reported comments violated Truman's policy against sexual harassment. REN's contract with Truman required REN employees to meet the standards set forth in Truman's Guest Relations Policy, which required employees to "refrain from making offensive . . . sexual remarks or jokes[.]" Moreover, because Hensen had been employed by Truman for 13 years before working for REN, investigators reviewed Hensen's personnel file and discovered that Truman had warned Hensen in 1987 about his use of inappropriate language in the workplace. Thus, after the investigation, Truman officials requested on May 8, 1996, that REN not assign Hensen to work at Truman.
On June 5, 1996, attorneys for REN sent attorneys for Truman a letter, which said:
Be advised that REN Corporation has taken corrective action as to William T. Hensen based upon the claims of [Truman] employees that Mr. Hensen allegedly made sexually inappropriate comments to them or in their presence. The corrective action taken is based specifically on the allegation of sexually inappropriate comments as outlined in your letters to me dated May 13, and 24, 1996. Also taken into account was information from [Truman's] personnel file on Mr. Hensen for the period he was a [Truman] employee. As part of this corrective action, Mr. Hensen will be required to take a sensitivity training course on the issue of sexual harassment. In the meantime, we intend to return Mr. Hensen to his full-time position at the acute care dialysis unit at Truman Medical Center. It is our anticipation that Mr. Hensen will be reassigned to another position in the Kansas City area when one becomes available--probably sometime later this year. From time to time, Mr. Hensen could be assigned to perform nursing services at our acute care dialysis unit at [Truman] on an on-call basis. Under
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