S-24-0035 Terri Dibbern (Appellee) v. York Surgical Associates, P.C. (Appellant)
Appeal from the District Court for York County, Judge James Stecker
Attorneys: James C. Zalewski (Olson Zalewski Wynner LLP for Appellee) and Patrick M. Flood (Pansing Hogan Ernst & Buser LLP for Appellant)
Civil: Wrongful discharge
Proceedings Below: Appellee brought a wrongful discharge claim against Appellant, and a jury awarded Appellee $260,129.00 in damages. On its own motion, the Supreme Court ordered this case to be transferred from the docket of the Court of Appeals to its docket.
Issues on Appeal: Appellant makes the following assignments of error: 1) The court erred by not granting Appellant’s motion for a directed verdict at the close of evidence on Appellee’s wrongful discharge claim for the following reasons: (a) Appellee neither pled nor proved that she was constructively discharged, (b) Appellee failed to identify and prove a Nebraska public policy that was violated, and (c) Appellee failed to prove that she was engaged in protected conduct sufficient to allow recovery under Nebraska’s public policy exception; engaging in mere praiseworthy conduct was not enough; and 2) The court erred by not granting Appellant a new trial because the amount of damages awarded was too large, specifically when the evidence showed that Appellee failed to mitigate her damages when she made a career decision to work part-time.