Mississippi’s Supreme Court has awarded $18,750 in damages to a former employee of Columbus-based Southern Pharmaceutical Corporation after the company fired him for complaining about an illegal kickback scheme.
The unanimous ruling — issued Thursday and authored by Chief Justice William Waller — overturns the move by Mississippi 16th Circuit Judge Jim Kitchens to throw out a Lowndes County jury’s decision in the case.
Jurors in the case had sided with Henry Roop in November 2013, after finding that Southern Pharmaceutical Corporation fired him for reporting illegal activity.
SPC hired Roop as its diabetic sales director in 2008. The Columbus-based company hired Roop with the stipulation that it could fire him at any time if he failed to maintain a minimum run rate of 1,500 new diabetic patients per year.
In July 2009, SPC sent Roop on a sales trip to meet with Patrick Gregory, the clinical director of Central Medical Health Services in Brandon. Roop went with SPC Brandon branch manager Johnny Pettigrew.
According to the ruling, Pettigrew and Gregory discussed Gregory’s wife working for SPC during the meeting. Pettigrew gave Gregory an SPC employment application to give to his wife.
The ruling says that after the meeting, Pettigrew told Roop that SPC would get in trouble because Gregory’s wife would not perform any work for the company. Roop called Doug Martin, one of SPC’s principal owners, and told him he wasn’t aware of the side offer and that offering kickbacks for referrals was illegal.
Martin fired Roop the next day. Roop filed suit in 2010, claiming he was fired for reporting the kickback scheme. SPC claimed that it fired him because he failed to meet sales requirements.
“Henry thought — when they started talking about it — that they were going to give her a real job,” said Tupelo attorney Jim Waide, who represented Roop. “That would not be a kickback, if they gave her the job. She didn’t know that job even existed.”
Waide said Gregory’s wife would have been paid based on commission for referrals to SPC from Gregory’s office.
Kitchens overturned the verdict because the planned scheme did not go into effect after Roop reported it. The Supreme Court disagreed.
“An employer should not escape liability for not completing its illegal act, simply because an employee prevented it from doing so,” Waller wrote. “Roop argues that the fact that an employee frustrates a criminal kickback scheme does not make the scheme any less criminal. We agree.”
The court also ordered Kitchens to select a jury to consider punitive damages. A date for the evidentiary hearing hasn’t yet been set.
Kitchens and Columbus-based attorney John Brady are both currently running for a seat on the state Supreme Court. They are vying to replace Ann Lamar, who has announced she is stepping down from the state’s high court.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.