Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-91-06305/USCOURTS-ca10-91-06305-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Anna M. Carter
Appellant
Freymiller Trucking, Inc.
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED sTATEs couRT oF APPEALS. .• Y8 I L L J) - Omwu tat.es C.0Urtof Appeal, 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Tenth Circuit 

ANNA M. CARTER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

FREYMILLER TRUCKING, INC., 

Defendant-Appellee. 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

DECO 9 1992 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk . 

No. 91-6305 

(D.C. No. CIV-90-1985-A) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

Before BALDOCK and SETH, Circuit Judges, and BABCOCK,** District 

Judge.*** 

**Honorable Lewis T. 

District Court for 

designation. 

Babcock, District Judge, 

the District of Colorado, 

United States 

sitting by 

Plaintiff-appellant Anna Carter appeals the district court's 

order granting the summary judgment motion of defendant-appellee 

Freymiller Trucking, Inc., on plaintiff's cause of action asserted 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

*** After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Appellate Case: 91-6305 Document: 010110151525 Date Filed: 12/09/1992 Page: 1 
under Oklahoma law for wrongful discharge in violation of public 

policy. The specific issue presented is whether defendant's 

termination of plaintiff's employment, when she became too ill to 

perform her duties as a long haul truck driver, violated public 

policy. Upon review of the record and the parties' arguments, we 

agree with the district court that defendant's action did not 

violate public policy and, therefore, we affirm. 

This court reviews the district court's summary judgment 

decision de novo, viewing the record in the light most favorable 

to the nonmoving party. Deepwater Invs., Ltd. v. Jackson Hole Ski 

Corp., 938 F.2d 1105, 1110 (10th Cir. 1991). Summary judgment is 

appropriate only if there is no genuine issue of material fact and 

the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 

Fed . R. Civ. P. 56(c). 

The undisputed facts indicate the following: Plaintiff had 

worked for defendant as a long haul truck driver since June 1988. 

In September 1989, plaintiff began experiencing medical problems, 

including nasal congestion, headaches, dizziness, weakness, loss 

of hearing, and ringing and throbbing in her left ear. While 

plaintiff was out on the road, she sought medical attention in 

both Florida and Pennsylvania. Each time doctors advised 

plaintiff to consult an ear, nose, and throat specialist. 

When plaintiff returned home to Oklahoma City, she did 

consult such a specialist, Dr . Rogers, on October 24. Dr. Rogers 

prescribed medication and asked plaintiff to come back in a month. 

Because her condition appeared to improve, plaintiff returned to 

work. Defendant was able to accommodate plaintiff by scheduling 

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Appellate Case: 91-6305 Document: 010110151525 Date Filed: 12/09/1992 Page: 2 
her driving assignments so that she could return to Oklahoma City 

in time for her next appointment. 

When plaintiff did see Dr. Rogers again, on November 21, she 

still complained of hearing loss, as well as ringing and throbbing 

in her left ear. Dr . Rogers scheduled a CT scan for the following 

month, on December 28. Plaintiff informed one of defendant's 

dispatchers that she had to be back in Oklahoma City on 

December 28 for the CT scan and the dispatcher assured her that 

it would be scheduled into the company's computer. Nonetheless, 

defendant failed to schedule plaintiff's assignments so that she 

could return to Oklahoma City by December 28. 

Beginning on December 20, when plaintiff reminded one of the 

dispatchers of her appointment for the CT scan, defendant's 

dispatchers informed plaintiff that they had no record of her 

December 28 medical appointment and that they did not have any 

assignments that would return her to Oklahoma City by that date. 

They assured her, however, that they would try to obtain for her 

an assignment to Oklahoma City as soon as possible. 

On December 27, plaintiff delivered a shipment from 

California to New Jersey . She was then dispatched to Connecticut, 

Quebec, and Illinois. Upon arriving in Illinois on January 8, 

1990, plaintiff told the dispatcher that she was too ill to drive 

and that she had to get to Oklahoma City to obtain medical 

treatment. 

destined 

plaintiff 

Louisiana 

Because there 

for Oklahoma 

the option of 

or Pennsylvania 

was still no available assignment 

City, defendant's dispatcher offered 

accepting an assignment to either 

or getting off the truck. Plaintiff 

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Appellate Case: 91-6305 Document: 010110151525 Date Filed: 12/09/1992 Page: 3 
declined to accept another driving assignment and refused to get 

off the truck, but instead drove defendant's truck back to 

Oklahoma City. 

In mid-January, when plaintiff began to feel better, she 

called defendant to obtain another driving assignment. At this 

time, however, according to plaintiff's deposition testimony, the 

dispatcher informed plaintiff that she had been terminated on 

January 9. Plaintiff finally had a CT scan in April 1990, which 

revealed the presence of a tumor on the nerve between plaintiff's 

left ear and her brain. That tumor had to be surgically removed. 

It is undisputed that plaintiff was an at-will employee. In 

an at-will employment relationship governed by Oklahoma law, the 

"employer may discharge an employee for good cause, for no cause 

or even for cause morally wrong, without being thereby guilty of 

legal wrong." Burk v. K-Mart Corp., 770 P.2d 24, 26 (Okla. 1989). 

Oklahoma courts, however, have recognized a limited public policy 

exception to this at will employment doctrine. Id. at 28. That 

exception applies only in a "narrow class of cases in which the 

discharge is contrary to a clear mandate of public policy as 

articulated by constitutional, statutory or decisional law." Id.; 

see also Williams v. Maremont Corp., 875 F.2d 1476, 1479 (10th 

Cir. 1989) (Oklahoma Supreme Court takes "narrow view with regard 

to circumstances under which a tort cause of action would arise in 

an employee discharge context"). 

Relying upon Todd v. Frank's Tong Service, Inc., 784 P.2d 47 

(Okla. 1989), plaintiff argues that defendant's decision to fire 

her, after she declined to accept another driving assignment 

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Appellate Case: 91-6305 Document: 010110151525 Date Filed: 12/09/1992 Page: 4 
because she was too ill to drive, violated public policy, as 

articulated in federal Department of Transportation regulations: 

No driver shall operate a motor vehicle, and a motor 

carrier shall not require or permit a driver to operate 

a motor vehicle, while the driver's ability or alertness 

is so impaired, or so likely to become impaired, through 

fatigue, illness, or any other cause, as to make it 

unsafe for him to begin or continue to operate the motor 

vehicle. However, in a case of grave emergency where 

the hazard to occupants of the vehicle or other users of 

the highway would be increased by compliance with this 

section, the driver may continue to operate the motor 

vehicle to the nearest place at which that hazard is 

removed. 

49 C.F.R. § 392.3. 

In Todd, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that an employee who 

alleged that he had been fired for refusing to drive a truck in a 

condition which violated state law stated an actionable claim 

under the public policy exception to at will employment. 784 P.2d 

at 50. Specifically, the plaintiff in Todd refused to operate 

"motor vehicles with defective brakes, headlights, and turn 

signals" because such conditions violated Oklahoma statutory law. 

Id. The Oklahoma Supreme Court held that "[t]o allow employers to 

dismiss employees who refuse to drive vehicles not conforming to 

statutory mandates of safety equipment and operation obviously 

contravenes this state's deeply rooted interest and public policy 

commitment to making its highways as safe as possible." Id. 

Plaintiff asserts that, just as the plaintiff in Todd was 

fired for refusing to violate safety regulations, she, too, was 

fired because she refused to violate 49 C.F.R. § 392.3 by 

accepting another driving assignment when she was too ill to 

drive. This case, however, is distinguishable from Todd. First, 

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Appellate Case: 91-6305 Document: 010110151525 Date Filed: 12/09/1992 Page: 5 
plaintiff was not fired after refusing to accept another driving 

assignment. Rather, plaintiff was terminated when, after 

declining to accept another assignment and refusing to get off the 

truck, she drove defendant's truck back to Oklahoma City, contrary 

to defendant's instructions. 

Secondly, in Todd, the plaintiff was ready and able to 

perform his job duties. He declined to do so only when those 

duties required him to violate state law. In this case, however, 

plaintiff, by her own admission, was unable to perform her duties 

of driving due to her illness. Defendant did not terminate 

plaintiff's employment because she refused to violate the 

Department of Transportation regulation, but because she was 

unable to drive her truck as required by her job. 

In light of the Oklahoma Supreme Court's admonition that this 

narrow exception to the employment at will doctrine "must be 

tightly circumscribed," Burk, 770 P.2d at 28-29, we decline to 

extend Oklahoma's public policy exception to the facts of this 

case. See Bishop v. Federal Intermediate Credit Bank, 908 F.2d 

658, 662 (10th Cir. 1990) (Oklahoma Supreme Court "would proceed 

cautiously in declaring public policy exceptions to the at-will 

doctrine in the absence of prior legislative or judicial 

expressions on the subject," citing Burk, 770 P.2d at 29). 

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Appellate Case: 91-6305 Document: 010110151525 Date Filed: 12/09/1992 Page: 6 
We, therefore, AFFIRM the decision of the United States 

District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. 

Entered for the Court 

Bobby R. Baldock 

Circuit Judge 

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