Police officer's whistleblower case against City of Ann Arbor is dismissed

Dawn King, a 23-year veteran of the Police Department, suffered two separate injuries to her chest and shoulder during March of 2009.   One resulted from efforts to subdue a prisoner and the injury was apparently aggravated during a training exercise.  The City and its workers comp carrier notified King that it would no longer cover her treatment after an arbitrary date.  It sent King for an Independent Medical Examination (IME) with its hand-selected doctor, who disputed King's doctor's recent confirmation that a bone-scan confirmed a lingering medical issue. 

When the City continued to deny King work comp medical, she sued under the Whistleblower Protection Act, contending that the City's handling of her comp case was retaliation for her efforts, as a union representative, to address unsafe conditions in a City office building. King was apparently pursuing the claim without counsel and she filed hand-written pleadings "admitting" that her supervisors were not aware that she had filed a MIOSHA building complaint when they refused to re-open her workers compensation claim.  In this circumstance, King had essentially admitted that the "adverse employment action" she alleged was not a retaliation for her whistleblowing activities, and therefore she was denied the right to sue.