Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/425/425mass761.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 08:41:12+00:00

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CIVIL ACTION commenced in the Superior Court Department on April 27, 1993.
Clare F. Carroll for the defendants.
her former supervisor, intentionally interfered with her employment. A Superior Court judge allowed the defendants' joint motion for summary judgment, and the Appeals Court affirmed in a memorandum and order under its rule 1:28. 42 Mass. App. Ct. 1101 (1997). We affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.
1. We have recognized that, in certain circumstances, an at-will employee may maintain an action against her former employer for wrongful discharge. See Upton v. JWP Businessland, ante 756, 757 (1997), and cases cited. The question is whether a well-established public policy is served by denying the employer the right freely to discharge an employee for engaging in particular conduct. Id. The Appeals Court viewed the summary judgment evidence most favorable to the plaintiff as indicating "that the plaintiff was discharged at the behest of Black for bringing to the attention of college officials a pilferage problem in the office headed by Black, reflecting badly on Black's administration of the office and suggesting ongoing criminality." The Appeals Court and the motion judge concluded that public policy is not violated when an employer discharges an employee for reporting criminal activity if the reports were made, not to public officials, but only within the employing unit.
In Mello v. Stop & Shop Cos., 402 Mass. 555 (1988), we assumed, without deciding, that an at-will employee who told his employer of criminal wrongdoing occurring within his company would be entitled to recover for a wrongful discharge, "even though before discharge he did not complain to public authorities." Id. at 560 n.6. Each authority cited by the Appeals Court in support of the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the college involved an at-will employee who was discharged for objecting to the policies or the manner of operation of his or her former employer, but none involved a report or complaint about an alleged violation of the criminal law. See King v. Driscoll, 418 Mass. 576 , 582-585 (1994); Wright v. Shriners Hosp. for Crippled Children, 412 Mass. 469 , 472-476 (1992); Smith-Pfeffer v. Superintendent of the Walter E. Fernald State Sch., 404 Mass. 145 , 149-151 (1989); Mello v. Stop & Shop Cos., supra at 560.
discharge. See Doe v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 423 Mass. 366 , 368 (1996). In her deposition, the plaintiff testified that she had no facts to support her claim that the defendant Black fired her in an effort to cover up his own responsibility for the alleged thefts. The record contains nothing to support the claim that the college discharged the plaintiff for a reason contrary to a well-established public policy.
2. There remains the plaintiff's claim that Black intentionally interfered with her employment contract. To prevail on this claim, the plaintiff must prove that (1) she had an employment contract with the college, (2) Black knowingly induced the college to break the contract, (3) Black's interference, in addition to being intentional, was improper in motive or means, and (4) she was harmed by Black's actions. Wright v. Shriners Hosp. for Crippled Children, 412 Mass. 469 , 476 (1992). The improper motive or means required is "actual malice." See King v. Driscoll, 418 Mass. 576 , 587 (1994); Boothby v. Texon, Inc., 414 Mass. 468 , 487 (1993). Actual malice is any "spiteful, malignant purpose, unrelated to the legitimate corporate interest." Wright v. Shriners Hosp. for Crippled Children, supra at 476.
The evidence in the summary judgment record would not permit the inference that Black acted with "actual malice" in arranging for the plaintiff's discharge. The record is replete with examples (some supplied by the plaintiff herself) of the troubles that the plaintiff was having on the job. Moreover, as we have said, the plaintiff admitted in her deposition that she had no facts to support her claim that Black had discharged her because he was trying to cover up the fact of the missing funds. Because Black produced unrebutted evidence that would justify the plaintiff's discharge and the plaintiff produced no evidence that Black had a spiteful, malignant purpose in making that discharge, the judge properly granted summary judgment on the intentional interference claim.
[Note 1] Edward J. Black.
[Note 2] In Smith v. Mitre Corp., 949 F. Supp. 943 (D. Mass. 1997), the victim of the allegedly unlawful conduct was a third party, and not, as here, the employer itself. In our case, the intensity of any public policy in favor of protecting a whistleblower is, therefore, arguably somewhat less.
[Note 3] That such an employer, when it is the victim of the alleged criminal conduct, may choose to ignore, to condone, or even to ratify the reported criminal wrongdoing is irrelevant. An employer should not be permitted to justify the discharge of such an employee by deciding after the fact that the reported, seemingly criminal wrongdoing was tolerable or even accepted company practice. See Belline v. K-Mart Corp., 940 F.2d 184, 189 (7th Cir. 1991).

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