By Judy L Thomas, Ben Wheeler
The Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former Kansas City emergency medical director is suing the city, alleging she faced ongoing retaliation for whistleblowing.
The lawsuit, filed last week in Jackson County Circuit Court, alleges that Erica Carney, who served as medical director from 2017 to December 2025, faced retaliation after raising concerns about emergency medical services operations. Carney also says she was shut out of critical decisions involving the mass shooting at the 2024 Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory rally.
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“When a doctor tells the city its emergency medical system is putting lives at risk, the answer should be to fix the system, not to get rid of the doctor,” said Carney’s attorney, Erin Vernon, in a text message to The Star.
Carney is demanding a jury trial and seeking damages for lost compensation and benefits, pain and suffering, stress and humiliation, as well as other relief. She also seeks litigation costs and reasonable attorney fees.
Carney is a faculty physician with University Health Physicians and the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, according to the lawsuit. She worked under a contract between Kansas City and University Health Physicians, reporting jointly to the city manager and the chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine.
Her duties included overseeing the audit process for EMS calls and providing medical direction for the system, including the Kansas City Fire Department, the lawsuit says.
Both Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins, a fire department spokesperson, and city spokesperson Jordan Berger said they could not comment on pending litigation.
A push for more oversight
The lawsuit is the latest in a string of civil cases filed against the city and the second in less than a week. It describes years of contentious relations between Carney’s office and the Fire Department and city officials.
Carney alleges that between November and December 2018, she requested several meetings with then-City Manager Troy Schulte, former Fire Chief Gary Reese and union leadership to discuss “continuing education failures and EMS oversight structure.”
In September 2019, Carney frequently attended meetings with the city manager’s office about EMS operational metrics, the lawsuit says.
“Despite Plaintiff bringing her concerns about safety and education to the attention of the fire administration, they expressed uncertainty about the meetings’ purposes because ‘everything was going well,’” the lawsuit says.
Between January and July 2022, “continuing education training was nearly nonexistent for Plaintiff due to the union resistance, CBA (collective bargaining agreement), and Professional Development Staffing,” the lawsuit alleges.
Carney continued to push for better competency oversight, it says.
“She even conducted a poll of the world’s largest EMS agencies, and agencies of comparable sizes and/or smaller agencies, showing that KCFD was amongst the two departments least-staffed when it came to EMS education instructors per licensed health care personnel under her watch within professional development,” the suit alleges.
In April 2023, the lawsuit says, KCFD administration ordered billing staff to “be mean to UMKC faculty.”
“The staff blew smoke in faculty faces, created unsafe environments, and threatened instructors,” it says. “Plaintiff brought up these issues to City HR, City manager, and KCFD administration. Multiple UMKC instructors resigned or were repositioned by this Fire and City Administration due to this treatment, leaving 1-2 EMS instructors for all KCFD.”
2024 Chiefs Super Bowl rally shooting
Immediately following the mass casualty shooting following the Kansas City Super Bowl victory rally in February 2024, Carney received “no direction or communication from the City or Fire Administration,” the lawsuit alleges.
It says the Fire Department administration excluded Carney’s entire office from all discussions and that then-Fire Chief Ross Grundyson “did not contact Plaintiff for two to three weeks, despite the shooting being the largest mass-casualty event in Kansas City History.”
Between January and April 2024, the lawsuit says, the Health Department removed Carney and her team’s office space despite a city ordinance requiring a location and forced them into the basement storage area. A Health Department employee let them fix his unused office space as a replacement, it says, but as soon as renovations were complete, they were asked by the director to leave the space.
The lawsuit also alleges that between September 2024 and January 2025, fire administration withheld planning information from Carney ahead of the 2025 Super Bowl rally, regardless of her responsibility for medical personnel assigned to major events.
“Despite Plaintiff’s exclusion from this planning, it was publicly stated that Plaintiff was ‘at the table,’” it says. “Plaintiff emailed the Fire Chief on or about January 14, 2025, in advance of the anticipated 2025 parade to get more information. Although Plaintiff was in charge of overseeing every EMT/FF, paramedic, nurse, and physician who staffs the events, the Fire Chief stated that the planning information was ‘confidential’ and did not share anything with Plaintiff.”
Blamed others and denied responsibility
The lawsuit includes numerous other allegations about safety concerns.
In January 2025, it says, an EMS physician advisory board unanimously supported removing an allegedly unsafe provider from the system. The provider had been involved in a fatal mistake, the lawsuit alleges, but KCFD delayed a hearing while unsafe practices continued.
According to the lawsuit, several license renewals and certifications lapsed for dozens of providers in March and April 2025. When that happened, the suit says, then-Deputy Chief Laura Ragusa reported that KCFD employees were providing care without credentials.
“KCFD professional development blamed others and denied responsibility despite various communications pointing to their failings,” the lawsuit says.
Ragusa and Carney shared the areas of concern with city administrators and recommended a competency audit, according to the lawsuit.
“Plaintiff reasonably believed she was reporting conduct that constituted violations of regulations and City Policy, mismanagement, and a very specific danger to public health and safety,” it says.
Ragusa, who resigned as deputy chief in June, filed a lawsuit against the city in February 2025, alleging Grundyson had discriminated against her after she informed him of what she believed were illegal and unethical practices related to department contracts and reporting requirements for federal reimbursements.
She later amended the suit to include new allegations regarding what she said were the city’s unfair and discriminatory hiring practices in picking a new fire chief. Vernon, who also is Ragusa’s attorney, declined to comment on that case.
Carney’s lawsuit claims that between April and May 2025, “union leadership” blamed her office during a “well-attended” union hall meeting for the death of firefighter Graham Hoffman, who was stabbed by a patient who was being transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital.
“After Plaintiff reported this accusation to the City EEO, they responded that they could not address the union-created hostile environment and City Legal said they could not offer protection,” the lawsuit says.
Carney’s office was removed from all emergency text notifications within hours of Hoffman’s killing, which the lawsuit claims is against policy and protocol.
The lawsuit says that Carney trained Hoffman as a paramedic student and worked closely with him, only finding out about his death through the news.
Carney’s office was placed in the funeral procession without any communication, which the lawsuit says was intended to make her and her office appear absent. The office was told they would not be allowed to sit with uniformed personnel at his funeral, the suit says.
FIFA World Cup preparations
Carney’s relationship continued to deteriorate, the lawsuit says. In May 2025, it alleges, she was warned to “get a lawyer” and told that the union and fire administration were trying to remove her.
After returning from family medical leave in October 2025 following her father’s death, Carney was told by a public safety official that she was “too hard to work with,” even though she’d had no prior complaints about working with others.
In early November 2025, it alleges, Kansas City Sports Commission leaders approached Carney and asked if they could talk to the city about retaining her, telling her she had never been difficult to work with and expressing “severe concern” about changing medical leadership before the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Carney was terminated effective Dec. 31, 2025, the lawsuit says.
“Defendant directed Plaintiff to return City property and vehicles, shut off her City email access, and held no transition meeting,” it says, adding that the termination also ended the positions of her associate medical director, oversight paramedic and administrative assistant.
Carney’s replacement was “far less qualified,” the lawsuit alleges, “yet was hired just months before the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”
The lawsuit alleges that Carney is still dealing with the effects of the city’s actions.
“Plaintiff suffered and continues to suffer significant trauma, reputational harm, professional harm, emotional distress, and stress because of Defendant’s retaliation,” it says.
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