Opinion ID: 2175497
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fairness of the Grievance Process

Text: In holding that Suburban's grievance procedures were legally required to be fundamentally fair and unbiased, the Court of Special Appeals treated the hospital's disciplinary system as if it were an arbitration designed to be the final resolution of the issues presented to it. 83 Md. App. at 113-18, 573 A.2d at 843-46. But it was not meant to be so. The system was not a binding arbitration agreement; it was merely a mechanism established by the hospital to give employees an opportunity to complain about disciplinary actions. Suburban's policy set out the procedures Dwiggins was entitled to have followed. Dwiggins is not entitled to have the court impose additional requirements. Dwiggins was still an at-will employee. Adding the element of general fairness and due process to the grievance procedure alters this at-will status, and care should be taken before a court decides that the parties intended such a result. Cf. Sullivan v. Snap-on Tools Corp., 708 F. Supp. 750, 753 (E.D.Va. 1989) (An employer's promise to discharge an employee only for just cause should be explicit and unambiguous, and such an intent should be clearly expressed.), aff'd, 896 F.2d 547 (4th Cir.1990). Although we have generally implied a covenant of fair dealing in negotiated contracts, [1] there is no implied covenant of fair dealing with regard to termination by either side in an employment-at-will. The employer or employee may terminate at-will even though to do so might be unfair to the other. Any modifications to the employment relationship in the instant case were self-imposed by the employer and unilateral. The employees remained free to quit the employment at any moment for any reason, and no grievance procedure would be available to the employer. If an employer unilaterally adds specific limitations or conditions on the right to terminate at-will, those specific limitations or conditions should be enforced by the courts, but they should not be expanded by the courts. Specific modifications to the at-will relationship should not be an indication that the employer intends to go beyond the specific modifications and add an implied covenant of fair dealing to the at-will relationship. An employer may limit his right to terminate a worker by establishing virtually any disciplinary procedure. But courts must not read more into the procedure than is there. Unless some public policy is implicated, employee grievance mechanisms should be analyzed only for what they offer; they must not be seen automatically as quasi-judicial forums for final and impartial dispute resolution governed by standards of due process and neutral fairness. To the extent that we are asked to impose a general requirement of good faith and fair dealing in at-will employment situations, we decline the invitation. [A] small number of courts have implied a covenant of good faith and fair dealing into employment contracts.... The majority of courts confronting the issue, however, have refused on both policy and analytical grounds to imply any version of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing into employment contracts. Note, Reversing the Presumption of Employment at Will, 44 Vand.L.Rev. 689, 699 (1991). It would amount to the judicial imposition of a collective bargaining agreement, a move best left to the legislature. Id. at 700. Because at-will agreements allow an employer to discharge an employee for bad cause, the covenant would impose a duty on the employer to use good faith in making bad cause discharges, a proposition that is merely a semantic step away from a flat contradiction. Id. See also Morris v. Coleman Co., Inc., 241 Kan. 501, 738 P.2d 841, 849-51 (1987) (surveying states that have considered the question and observing that the principle of law stated in Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 205, that every contract imposes upon each party a duty of good faith and fair dealing in its performance and its enforcement, is overly broad and should not be applicable to employment-at-will contracts); Fogel v. Trustees of Iowa College, 446 N.W.2d 451, 456-57 (Iowa 1989) (The majority of jurisdictions that have addressed the [implied] covenant [of good faith and fair dealing in employment contracts] have unequivocally rejected it.); Note, Wrongful Termination of the Employment-At-Will Rule in California: DeHorney v. Bank of America, 35 DePaul L.Rev. 907, 908 (1986) (California and a small minority of other jurisdictions recognize the most liberal exception to the employment-at-will rule and impose a duty of good faith and fair dealing on the employer-employee relationship.). Because we find that the grievance procedures were followed and there is no need to go further and require that they also be fundamentally fair, we hold that the trial court should have granted Suburban's motion for judgment on Dwiggins' contract claim. JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS REVERSED. CASE REMANDED TO THAT COURT WITH DIRECTIONS TO REMAND THE CASE TO THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY FOR ENTRY OF JUDGMENT IN FAVOR OF PETITIONER. COSTS IN THIS COURT AND THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY RESPONDENT.