Every once in a while I read something that inspires the belief that things are going to be OK, that the apocalypse is not actually at hand.

The most recent morale-boosting article came from the Insurance Journal under the unlikely headline “R.I. High Court Throws out Lawsuit Based on Bad Job Reference.”

Not being a court watcher or follower of Rhode Island news, I nearly ignored the story. But the idea of a lawsuit based on a bad job reference caught my attention, so I followed the link.

Here the lede from the story:

Rhode Island's highest court this week dismissed a lawsuit filed by a licensed nurse who sued her former boss over a bad job reference.

Here’s the follow-up graf:

Paula Kevorkian said Judith Glass, her former supervisor at the Pawtuxet Village Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, wrote a defamatory and malicious reference when she described Kevorkian as having "unacceptable work practice habits.''

Yes, the nurse’s name is Kevorkian. And the reason for the bad reference from her former supervisor? “Kevorkian was suspended from work for three days in April 1994 for allegedly failing to give patients their necessary medications, according to the court's 12-page ruling.”

I swear I’m not making this up.

The Rhode Island court, in its wisdom, threw out the case, saying Glass was qualified to make such statements about Kevorkian and was not motivated by malice or ill will. She was just being honest. And who knows? Maybe she thought people’s lives depended on this woman not being in a position to dispense vital medication.

So the court made the right move and didn’t set a precedent that would have likely resulted in the cessation of the entire enterprise of reference writing. Well done, Rhode Island.

Yet in looking through the comments on the article, it seems as if many employers were already skittish about writing references for their former workers. That’s a shame.

Other people who posted comments focused on the plaintiff’s unfortunate surname. To whom commenter Todd Hitler replied, “What’s wrong with her name?” :)