Former head of Children’s Mercy Research Institute files whistleblower lawsuit over firing
The former director of the Children’s Mercy Research Institute is suing Children’s Mercy Hospital, alleging that he was fired more than a year ago for disclosing the alleged misconduct of the hospital’s then-CEO to the hospital’s board.
In addition to asking to get his job back and be compensated for lost salary and benefits, Tom Curran, a pioneer in pediatric brain tumor research, claims Children’s Mercy ruined his prospects for employment elsewhere by locking him out of his lab when he was let go. That lab contained a lifetime of research material he brought to Children’s Mercy when he helped found the research institute in 2016.
In the lawsuit he filed this week in Jackson County Circuit Court, Curran claims he is still being denied access to those files and specimens that belong to him and were the basis of his research seeking cures for kids with cancer.
The lawsuit recounts many of the same facts that The Star published last summer in a story about how Curran’s dismissal caused the Hall Family Foundation to suspend millions of dollars in donations to support the research institute, while other donors asked for the return of funds to underwrite research positions that had not been filled.
The donors’ complaints about Curran’s firing caused the hospital board to conduct an internal investigation, the lawsuit says. That was followed by former CEO Paul Kempinski’s announcement that he would resign.
While Kempinski is not named as a defendant, the lawsuit focuses heavily on Curran’s allegations that his former boss forced him out of his job because Curran had told board members that Kempinski was undermining the hospital’s focus on research in favor of other programs.
Among the things Curran objected to was Kempinksi’s failure to fill four principal investigator positions subsidized by a $10 million endowment. And he felt Kempinski was more intent on improving the hospital’s bottom line than on the research goals set before Kempinski took over in late 2018.
The two also disagreed about Kempinski’s desire to use the top two floors of the nine-story research institute building for purposes other than research. According to the lawsuit, Kempinski was not pleased when Curran reminded him that the space was being mothballed for future research use with the support of the donors who paid $150 million of the $200 million it cost to erect the building.
The lawsuit claims Curran was fired after he told board members that he had concerns about Kempinski’s leadership. That included the CEO’s alleged threat to fire top subordinates who did not sign a pledge to support his “Blue Chip” list of goals for the hospital that, according to the lawsuit, had only “minor references to research.”
The Star’s article reported on how that diminishing emphasis on research put at risk Children’s Mercy’s continuation as a full participant in the area’s National Cancer Institute Consortium, which is led by the Cancer Center at the University of Kansas.
Among the potential impacts of that would be Children’s Mercy’s difficulty in recruiting top cancer researchers.
The lawsuit does not address that topic directly, but rather focuses on Curran’s own employment situation and disagreements about the direction of research at Children’s Mercy.
Curran is in his late 60s and claims he was forced out partly due to his age and claims to be protected by Missouri law under the state’s whistleblower protection act.
Children’s Mercy has not responded to the court filing yet and did not immediately respond to The Star’s request for comment.
