HR Employee Claims KY Nursing Home Fired Her for Upholding Drug Policy

Summer Biggers filed lawsuit against Christian Care Communities claiming unlawful retaliation

A human resources employee at a Christian Kentucky nursing home has filed a lawsuit claiming leaders fired her for attempting to enforce the organization’s drug policy.

Christian Health Center in Hopkinsville, Ky. / Christian Care Communities

Last month, Summer Biggers, a former HR employee at Christian Care Communities (CCC), a Hopkinsville, Kentucky, nursing home, filed a federal lawsuit alleging the facility retaliated against her after she tried to enforce its “zero tolerance” drug policy and raised patient-safety concerns that local management was helping employees evade drug-testing standards for THC/marijuana.

Biggers says she understood throughout her employment that CCC expected leaders to enforce its drug policy, including restrictions on marijuana/THC, which remained illegal in Kentucky and Tennessee until Jan. 1, 2025. As Kentucky’s medical cannabis program took effect under Senate Bill 47, it is now available under limited circumstances with a valid prescription.

Biggers’ complaint centers on incidents that occurred in 2025, after Kentucky’s medical cannabis law took effect, and claims she was reporting that employees were using marijuana/THC illegally. The complaint further alleges CCC’s board never revised the policy or suggested leaders could selectively disregard parts of it without jeopardizing resident safety.

Whatever the merits of Biggers’s claims, the dispute lands at a moment when organizations’ policies on marijuana laws continue to evolve state by state. Nebraska approved medical marijuana in 2024, New Hampshire expanded eligibility in 2024, and Texas widened its medical program in 2025, while states like Ohio, Minnesota, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Rhode Island moved to legalize adult-use. By mid-2025, 40 states allowed medical cannabis and 24 permitted adult-use in some form, making policy updates less optional than overdue.

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Even with legalization, CCC’s drug policy—quoted in the complaint—permits properly prescribed medications taken as directed, but bars employees from having excessive amounts of otherwise lawful controlled substances in their system while at work. The policy also states that the prohibition includes illegally or improperly obtained lawful controlled substances.

Against that backdrop, the complaint alleges that CCC’s Hopkinsville administrator, LuAnne Tatum, made it “easier” to run the facility by keeping staff who used “illegal” substances, so long as they did not test positive or could produce medical paperwork portraying THC use as “beneficial.”

The complaint lists an incident where narcotics went missing from a medication cart, and CCC told employees they would be drug tested. Biggers alleges some admitted they would fail for marijuana/THC without a prescription, and one or more tests came back positive. Biggers claims Tatum responded by saying the facility does not test for THC upon hire “for a reason” and directed staff to obtain a prescription or doctor’s note so management could “work with that,” an approach she allegedly attributed to the CCC’s CEO.

Biggers also describes a separate episode involving “Employee 1,” who she says was allowed to begin work before completing a required pre-employment drug screen and repeatedly claimed she could not urinate, while disclosing Suboxone use. Biggers says she warned Tatum that she was concerned that “Employee 1” was undermining the process, and alleges her concerns deepened when the test cup was routed through the employee’s supervisor and the employee returned almost immediately with a full sample. Biggers further alleges she later reported suspicions that Tatum herself may have been abusing drugs.

According to the court documents, Biggers claims she reported to CCC’s corporate office that the Hopkinsville facility was undermining CCC’s drug policy in ways that raised patient-safety concerns. The complaint argues that CCC responded not by investigating, but by punishing the messenger—retaliating against Biggers and ultimately firing her. The complaint claims the reason was bluntly financial—that CCC allegedly viewed the managers implicated in her reports as essential to keeping the Hopkinsville facility generating revenue.

Biggers says in the complaint that CEO Mary Lynn Spalding directed Craig Feger, CCC’s vice president of Human Resources, to discipline Biggers for making that report, but that Feger declined because he believed it would constitute illegal retaliation and confirmed with Tatum that the discipline was unjustified.

The documents further claim that after Feger said he and Tatum would “go another route,” Spalding overruled that decision and instructed Tatum to issue the discipline anyway, and that Feger resigned shortly thereafter and was told not to work out his notice period.

When asked about the complaint’s account of his resignation, Feger declined to comment on the pending case or his time at CCC. However, he told MinistryWatch that his resignation was the direct result of a career advancement opportunity another organization had offered him.

Christian Care Communities Vice President Jim Patton told MinistryWatch that the organization has denied the allegations and is confident of the outcome. He said he couldn’t comment further due to active litigation, but stressed that CCC takes its drug and alcohol policy “very” seriously, while remaining sensitive to an individual’s well-being.

MinistryWatch attempted to reach both Summer Biggers and LuAnne Tatum for comment. However, we have not heard back at the time of publishing.

The case is still in its early stages.

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