the proper process. Churchill took her case to federal court. Her suit in the Central District of Illinois in Peoria named Waters, Davis, Hopper and the hospital as defendants. She alleged violations of her First Amendment right to free speech and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process under Section 1983, and breach of contract under Illinois law. No trial was actually held. After all witnesses had been deposed, Judge Michael M. Mihm considered motions for summary judgement, granting them for the defense. Churchill appealed, and won a reversal. Lower courts District court In a deposition, Churchill gave her version of the break room conversation she had had with Perkins-Graham that had led to her dismissal. She had repeated her earlier criticisms, which were not of cross-training in itself but merely the way Davis had implemented it. A specific concern of hers was the hospital's requirement that obstetric nurses who had reassigned to another department shower and change before returning to obstetrics, in an apparent effort to circumvent a regulatory requirement that nurses assigned to obstetrics remain there for an entire shift or not return if they were temporarily assigned elsewhere. As to whether her comments about Waters had been as continuous and negative as Perkins-Graham and Ballew had asserted, Churchill testified that she had not had a problem with Waters and felt she could have a good working relationship with her. Welty, the chief shift nurse on duty that night, who had overheard most of the conversation from the nearby nurses' station, corroborated Churchill's version. She further recalled that Perkins-Graham had said she had only one reservation about transferring to obstetrics—Waters. Churchill, Welty testified, had actually defended Waters, saying she had a difficult job and was sometimes moody, but that could be accommodated. After the depositions had been taken and briefs filed, the defendants moved for summary judgement. Judge Michael M. Mihm granted it on all but the First Amendment claim. Much of his opinion, handed down in early 1990, consisted of a lengthy explication of Illinois case law on contract formation as it applied to language in the hospital's employee handbook. He held that it did not constitute a firm offer of continued employment and thus could not be considered a contract Churchill had become party to by continuing to work once aware of its terms. Since there was no contract to breach, there could be no denial of