Custom «Department of Health» Essay Paper Sample

KarenIrven worked with Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) as a Child Protective Investigator. She was dismissed from her job; however, she later sued her employer for improper dismissal from duty because she was a whistle blower of misconduct at HRS. Ms. Irven claimed that she was punished for disclosing privy information in the S.S. case contrary to the Whistle blower’s Act (Karen Irven v. Department of Health 1). The Second District dismissed the charges made against HRS citing that there was no sufficient evidence to prove HRS was guilty of the allegation. The Whistle-blower Act seeks to protect employees in the public sector from being punished for reporting misconduct in the government.

Ms. Irven was opposed to being assigned a case of a child who was previously sheltered before going to live with her grandmother in Nassau County. She was of the opinion that she was not in the best place to protect the child or to investigate her case since she was far from the child. Ms. Irven decided to write to her supervisor together with the HRS in-house counsel, and in her notice, she revealed that HRS had not been very honest in its proposition to the court, in which it sought to transfer the S.S. case. Furthermore, she cited that HRS had violated a juvenile procedure rule and that its actions had led to the exposure of the four-year-old victim to more sexual abuse (Karen Irven v. Department of Health 9).

The HRS lawyer later admitted that his client was guilty of violating a juvenile procedure rule and making false representations to the court, but it was justified in dismissing Ms. Irven. Consequently, this was an admission to wrongdoing by HRS employees whose negligence and incompetence exposed the child to sexual abuse (Karen Irven v. Department of Health 10). Ms. Irven appealed the ruling in favor of HRS at the Supreme Court, and the court ruled in her favor positing that the Whistle blower’s Act was a remedial statute aimed at protecting government employees in a bid to curb the corruption in public institutions.

HRS remained adamant that it was justified in dismissing Ms. Irven since she did not have sovereign immunity provided by the Whistle blower’s Act. HRS argued that it did not dismiss her on the basis of disclosing the gross misconduct of the institution, but on the basis of a disagreement pertaining to the ‘venue’ in the S.S. case; something it termed as a ‘discretionary act’ (Karen Irven v. Department of Health 8). The Florida Law, which earlier allowed government institutions to fire their employees for whistle blowing, was revoked when the Whistle blower’s Act was enforced. As a result, no public office is permitted to sack whistle-blowers since they are protected by ‘sovereign immunity’ (Karen Irven v. Department of Health7). Consequently, HRS had to change its policies.

In the petition between Karen Irven and the Department of Health, the plaintiff is Ms.Irven, who was dismissed from work because she raised a flag on misconduct in the HRS department. She was the Child Protective Investigator in the S.S. case, and she challenged the manner in which HRS was handling the case since the actions by HRS had left a four-year child highly exposed to sexual abuse. Ms. Irven sued HRS, but she lost the case when HRS claimed that it fired her as a discretionary act rather than avenging for blowing the whistle; therefore, she decided to appeal at the Supreme Court, which ruled in her favor, and she was to be reinstated. The Florida law that allowed public offices to fire whistle-blowers was revoked, and the Whistle blower’s Act was enacted in order to contain the corruption in government institutions.