Case Title: Jones v. Ethridge

Citation: 497 So. 2d 1107

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1986-11-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
497 So. 2d 1107 (1986)
Vonnie Carnell JONES
v.
Ronald ETHRIDGE, Sr.,[1] et al.
84-1025.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
November 7, 1986.
Stephen B. Griffin, Birmingham, for appellant.
Marcia W. Wright of Sadler, Sullivan, Sharp & Stutts, Birmingham, for appellees.
PER CURIAM.
Affirmed on the authority of Williams v. Killough, 474 So. 2d 680 (Ala.1985); Self v. Bennett, 474 So. 2d 673 (Ala.1985); Hinrichs v. Tranquilaire Hospital, 352 So. 2d 1130 (Ala.1977).
AFFIRMED.
TORBERT, C.J., and MADDOX, ALMON, SHORES, HOUSTON and STEAGALL, JJ., concur.
JONES, BEATTY and ADAMS, JJ., dissent.
JONES, Justice (dissenting):
Appellant, claiming wrongful discharge from employment based on the refusal of her employer's demand that she commit a criminal act, asks us to revisit Hinrichs v. Tranquilaire Hospital, 352 So. 2d 1130 (Ala.1977). Pursuant to the public policy considerations expressed by the legislature in Code 1975, § 12-16-8.1 and § 25-5-11.1, this Court should now reverse its holding in Tranquilaire.
Following Tranquilaire, the Court in Bender Ship Repair, Inc. v. Stevens, 379 So. 2d 594 (Ala.1980), upheld the right of an employer to discharge an employee for his responding to a subpoena for jury duty. Thereafter, in Meeks v. Opp Cotton Mills, Inc., 459 So. 2d 814 (Ala.1984), we again upheld an employer's right to fire an employee for the sole reason that he brought a workmen's compensation claim for job-related injuries against his employer. As in the instant case, the plaintiff in each of those cases was an employee at will, i.e., one not covered by a contract of employment for a fixed term or under which the employee could be terminated only "for cause." For an in-depth treatment of this subject, see "The Employment at Will Rule," 31 Ala.L.Rev. 421 (1980); "Meeks v. Opp Cotton Mills: The Alabama Supreme Court Refuses to Modify the Employment at Will Rule," 36 Ala.L.Rev. 1039 (1985).
Responding to Bender Ship Repair and Meeks, the legislature reacted swiftly and decisively by enacting § 12-16-8.1 and § 25-5-11.1. Section 12-16-8.1 provides:
Section 25-5-11.1 states:
Although these two statutes address separate and distinct grounds for the firing of "at-will" employees, they represent but a single expression of public policy. Founded upon one's fundamental duty to obey the law and the equally fundamental right to pursue a legal remedy, public policy mandates that an "at-will" employee who exercises a lawful right to pursue a statutory worker's remedy, or who responds to a legal duty, cannot be fired for those reasons alone. The concept of public policy, as a basis for shaping the law, was defined in Maddox v. Fuller, 233 Ala. 662, 667, 173 So. 12, 16 (1937):
No judicial extension of this legislatively expressed public policy is required for this Court's application of the same policy considerations to the instant facts. Indeed, it is totally rational to conclude that prohibiting an employer from forcing an employee to disobey the law as a condition of employment is necessarily embraced within the same public policy as the prohibition against the firing of an employee for exercising a lawful right or performing a legal duty. Surely, for comparative purposes, the right not to commit a crime is an even stronger reason for invoking the proscription against firing an employee, for in this case there is an additional element of the employer's criminal conduct. For this Court to persist in its adherence to Tranquilaire is an affront to the legislative intent clearly expressed in § 12-16-8.1 and § 25-5-11.1.
To recognize and apply the public policy evidenced by these two recently enacted statutes would not be to interpret these Acts as changing the general common law rule with respect to the employer's right to fire an at-will employee. To be sure, the codification of this public policy exception lends credibility to the retention of the general rule and its application.
I would further hold that a claim for wrongful, retaliatory discharge of an employee at will, brought pursuant to this public policy exception, sounds in tort, for which compensatory damages are recoverable. Ordinarily, because such a retaliatory discharge would be an intentional tort, punitive damages should also be recoverable. I am impressed, however, with the reasoning of Murphy v. City of Topeka-Shawnee County Dept. of Labor Services, 6 Kan.App.2d 488, 630 P.2d 186 (1981), in which the Kansas Court of Appeals said:
Perhaps, now, the legislature will again react, swiftly and decisively, to expressly provide an employee a remedy where the employer fires the employee for refusing to commit a criminal act.
BEATTY and ADAMS, JJ., concur.
[1]  Although the notice of appeal indicates that this defendant's name is spelled "Etheridge," a close review of the record indicates that the correct spelling is "Ethridge."