Opinion ID: 1203370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of the Public Policy Exception

Text: Here, we are not being asked to declare public policy. (3) The issue as framed by the pleadings and the parties is whether there exists a clear constitutional or legislative declaration of fundamental public policy forbidding plaintiff's discharge under the facts and circumstances presented. Initially, the parties dispute whether the discharge of an employee in retaliation for reporting a coworker's claim of sexual harassment to higher management may rise to the level of a Tameny violation. Sentry argues that such reporting inures only to the benefit of the employee in question rather than to the public at large, and questions the constitutional or statutory basis of such a claim. Plaintiff responds that the same constitutional provision (Cal. Const., art. I, § 8) that prohibits sexual discrimination against employees and demands a workplace free from the pernicious influence of sexual harassment (see Rojo v. Kliger, supra, 52 Cal.3d at pp. 89-90) also protects the employee who courageously intervenes on behalf of a harassed colleague. Although Sentry did not discriminate against Gantt on account of his sex within the meaning of the constitutional provision, there is nevertheless direct statutory support for the jury's express finding that Sentry violated a fundamental public policy when it constructively discharged plaintiff in retaliation for his refusal to testify untruthfully or to withhold testimony in the course of the DFEH investigation. Indeed, Petermann v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, supra, 174 Cal. App.2d 184, one of the seminal California decisions in this area ( Tameny, supra, 27 Cal.3d 167, 173), presented the parallel situation of an employee who was dismissed from his position because he had refused to follow his employer's instructions to testify falsely under oath before a legislative committee. Such conduct, the court concluded, could not be condoned as a matter of public policy and sound morality. It would be obnoxious to the interests of the state and contrary to public policy and sound morality to allow an employer to discharge any employee ... on the ground that the employee declined to commit perjury, an act specifically enjoined by statute.... The public policy of this state as reflected in the Penal Code sections referred to above [Pen. Code, §§ 118, 653f] would be seriously impaired if it were to be held that one could be discharged by reason of his refusal to commit perjury. (174 Cal. App.2d at pp. 188-189.) We endorsed the principles of Petermann in Tameny, holding that an employee who alleged that he was discharged because he refused to participate in an illegal price fixing scheme may subject his employer to liability for compensatory and punitive damages under normal tort principles. (27 Cal.3d 167, 169.) As we explained: [A]n employer's authority over its employee does not include the right to demand that the employee commit a criminal act to further its interests, and an employer may not coerce compliance with such unlawful directions by discharging an employee who refuses to follow such an order. An employer engaging in such conduct violates a basic duty imposed by law upon all employers, and thus an employee who has suffered damages as a result of such discharge may maintain a tort action for wrongful discharge against the employer. ( Id. at p. 178.) The instant case fits squarely within the rubric of Petermann and Tameny. The FEHA specifically enjoins any obstruction of a DFEH investigation. Government Code section 12975 provides: Any person who shall willfully resist, prevent, impede or interfere with any member of the department or the commission or any of its agents or employees in the performance of duties pursuant to the provisions of this part relating to employment discrimination, ... is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment. Nowhere in our society is the need greater than in protecting well motivated employees who come forward to testify truthfully in an administrative investigation of charges of discrimination based on sexual harassment. It is self-evident that few employees would cooperate with such investigations if the price were retaliatory discharge from employment. [7] Thus, any attempt to induce or coerce an employee to lie to a DFEH investigator plainly contravenes the public policy of this state. Accordingly, we hold that plaintiff established a valid Tameny claim based on the theory of retaliation for refusal to withhold information or to provide false information to the DFEH.