Opinion ID: 1453310
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Preliminary Comment Relating to Wrongful Discharge

Text: The law relating to claims by employees against their employers for wrongful discharge is rapidly evolving and is often lacking in the clarity one would expect to find in the more static areas of judicial decision-making. For this reason we thought it useful to give a preliminary overview of the three discrete claims for relief which we consider in this opinion, namely, a claim for breach of contract, a claim for the tortious breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing which can arise out of certain employer-employee contractual relationships (sometimes called a badfaith discharge tort) and tortious discharge (sometimes called a public policy tort). 1. Breach of Employment Contract. Employment contracts are ordinarily and presumably contracts which are terminable at will; however, an employer may expressly or impliedly agree with an employee that employment is to be for an indefinite term and may be terminated only for cause or only in accordance with established policies or procedures. We have called this a contract of continued employment, a contract which an employee can enforce in accordance with its terms. 2. Bad Faith Discharge Tort. This tort is committed when an employer, acting in bad faith, discharges an employee who has established contractual rights of continued employment and who has developed a relationship of trust, reliance and dependency with the employer. By its nature this kind of employer-employee relationship cannot develop in an at-will employment; consequently, a bad faith discharge tort cannot be committed against an at-will employee as can a tortious discharge. 3. Tortious Discharge. This tort, the so-called public policy tort, is the simpler of the two subject employment torts. An employer commits a tortious discharge by terminating an employee for reasons which violate public policy. Although this kind of public policy tort cannot ordinarily be committed absent the employer-employee relationship, the tort, the wrong itself, is not dependent upon or directly related to a contract of continued employment such as that existing in the present case. K Mart Corp. v. Ponsock, 103 Nev. 39, 46, 732 P.2d 1364, 1369 (1987). [8] Discharging an employee for seeking industrial insurance benefits, for performing jury duty or for refusing to violate the law are examples of tortious discharge. See, e.g., NRS 6.190; Hansen v. Harrah's, 100 Nev. 60, 675 P.2d 394 (1984). Having defined the scope of the opinion, we now proceed to a discussion of the first matter of concern, liability for breach of the employment contract.