Managers and the Legal Environment 7th Edition by David Madsen, Constance Bagley

Exercise 9

Have any of the employers in the following cases terminated an employee in violation of public policy? Has each employer acted ethically?
a. Elizabeth M. Stewart was a highly talented salesperson for Cendant Mobility Services Corporation. Stewart's husband was also employed by Cendant as an executive in the operations department. During a major corporate reorganization, Cendant terminated Stewart's husband. Shortly thereafter, Stewart spoke with James Simon, Cendant's executive vice president of sales, regarding her concerns about how her employment with Cendant might be affected if her husband ultimately found employment with a competitor. Simon told Stewart that her husband's employment would have no bearing on her employment with Cendant and that she had no reason to be concerned about her status at Cendant because she was a highly valued employee. On the basis of these assurances, Stewart continued in her position with Cendant and did not pursue other employment opportunities.
Nearly one year after Cendant's reorganization, Cendant learned that Stewart's husband was working for a competitor and subsequently reduced her duties and limited her interaction with clients. Cendant also requested that Stewart verbally agree to a document that purported to delineate her obligations to Cendant in relation to her husband's work on behalf of any competitor of Cendant. When Stewart declined to agree to this document, Cendant terminated her employment. [Stewart v. Cendant Mobility Services Corp., 836 A.2d 736 (Conn. 2003).]
b. Dohme claimed that he was fired by Eurand America, Inc. because he had expressed concerns to outside parties about the safety of the Eurand workplace. In 2002, Dohme had discussed with his neighbor, who was a captain with the local fire department, the design of a pump that Dohme believed had started a fire at the plant. In 2003, he had communicated his workplace-safety concerns to an insurance adjuster who conducted an on-site evaluation of Eurand's facility to assess the building and its operations. Prior to the insurance adjuster's visit, Eurand had sent an interoffice e-mail to all its employees explaining that the facility would be inspected by the adjuster and that only the employees identified in that e-mail were to have contact with the adjuster. Even though Dohme was not on the list, he spoke with the adjuster anyway. In his suit against Eurand, he contended that he was terminated because of his "perceived role in an on-site insurance adjuster's discovery of certain violations relative to [Eurand America's] fire alarm system, which jeopardized workplace safety and placed employees in [an] unreasonable and dangerous setting." Eurand America claimed that Dohme was terminated for contributing to the violations the adjuster found in his inspection and for insubordination. [Dohme v. Eurand America, Inc., 2011 WL 4108354 (Ohio Sept. 15, 2011).]
c. A nonexempt employee alleged that she was discharged after thirty years of employment with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation because she complained about being underpaid and requested remediation. She also claimed that she was forced to falsify her timekeeping records during her employment at the clinic. [DeMell v. Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 2007 WL 1705094 (Ohio App. 8 Dist. June 14, 2007).]
d. An employee hired as an "environmental/assistant safety manager" complained about La-Z-Boy's handling of injured employees on a number of occasions. Among other incidents, she submitted a memorandum in which she stated that employees' injury claims were being intentionally mismanaged and that the claim adjuster was hostile to employees who filed workers' compensation claims. She also informed the human resources director that the "alternate duty assignments" given to injured employees were demeaning. When she told La-Z-Boy's vice president that an employee had been injured and that his benefits were being improperly denied, she alleged that she was told "she would be fired if she ever talked to any employees about their Workers' Compensation issues or their injuries." Several months later while she was on maternity leave, she was informed that she had been terminated and her position had been filled. [Touchard v. La-Z-Boy, Inc., 148 P.3d 945 (Utah 2006).]
e. Collotype Labels suspended Luke after learning that he had lied about having his position covered when he took time off. While he was suspended, Luke sent an e-mail to a Collotype manager in another office, entitled "trouble brewing," that related to various complaints raised by a number of Collotype employees. The next day, Collotype terminated Luke's employment for insubordination and provided him with a termination memorandum stating that one of the reasons for his termination was that he had been soliciting signatures for a letter denouncing the company's management. [Luke v. Collotype Labels USA, Inc., 159 Cal. App. 4th 1463 (2008).]
f. Brent Voss is a partial owner of two companies, Liberty Holdings, Inc. and Premier Concrete Pumping, L.L.C. In 2004, Nathan Berry began working for Liberty Holdings. On June 5, 2006, a concrete pumper truck owned by Premier struck and injured Berry, who was on his way home from work. Berry filed a personal-injury lawsuit against Premier for the injuries he sustained in the collision. Berry ultimately settled this claim within the policy limits of Premier's insurance coverage.
Approximately nine months after the settlement, Liberty Holdings terminated Berry's employment. Berry filed suit against Liberty Holdings, asserting an intentional tort claim for wrongful termination in violation of public policy. Berry alleged that Liberty Holdings terminated his employment "because he engaged in the protected activity of bringing a claim for personal injury" against Premier. [Berry v. Liberty Holdings, Inc., 803 N.W.2d 106 (Iowa 2011).]