Attorneys: Ruling Signals Major Change to Wrongful Discharge Law

By Joey BerlinSouthern Bureau ChiefWhen the Missouri Supreme Court upended three decades of case law earlier this week, it’s safe to say quite a few of the state’s attorneys – although not all – were surprised.The ruling Tuesday in Templemire v. W&M Welding – that an employee can prevail on a wrongful discharge action if the fact that he was fired for a workers’ compensation claim was merely a “contributing factor” to the termination – set off a chain of email and phone messages that were waiting for attorney Joseph Ebbert when he got i...