Opinion ID: 1612933
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Cause of Action Against Afram Brothers.

Text: The plaintiff contends that his discharge was wrongful and unlawful and points to section 9.01 of the collective-bargaining agreement. This clause provides that an employee shall lose his seniority if he is discharged for cause but, in our opinion, does not provide support for Mr. Cheese's claim that he was improperly discharged. In the absence of affirmative allegations indicating in what manner Afram Brothers failed to comply with the collective-bargaining contract in discharging the plaintiff, the amended complaint asserts only a legal conclusion and, since there was first an order to make the complaint more definite and certain, is demurrable. Cf. Simpson v.  Cornish (1928), 196 Wis. 125, 132, 133, 218 N. W. 193; Doolittle v. Laycock (1899), 103 Wis. 334, 79 N. W. 408. In Cheese v. Industrial Comm. (1963), 21 Wis. (2d) 8, 123 N. W. (2d) 553, this court held that the plaintiff had not engaged in misconduct for purposes of the Unemployment Compensation Act. However, it does not follow from such holding that the discharge necessarily subjects the employer to liability for breach of contract. Under the enlightened social and economic objectives of unemployment compensation, an employee may be entitled to benefits even though his employer had the contractual right to discharge him from his job. Milwaukee Transformer Co. v. Industrial Comm. (1964), 22 Wis. (2d) 502, 512, 126 N. W. (2d) 6. Thus, the prior ruling of this court that Mr. Cheese's actions were not misconduct for purposes of the Unemployment Compensation Act does not alone support an allegation in a damage action that he was wrongfully discharged. Although the employer also urges that the complaint against it is defective because of the failure to allege an exhaustion of remedies, we note that the case in which this court held that there was an obligation to allege and prove exhaustion of remedies in an action against an employer was one in which the employee sought reinstatement. Widuk v. John Oster Mfg. Co. (1962), 17 Wis. (2d) 367, 374, 117 N. W. (2d) 245. However, in McDonald v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co. (1964), 25 Wis. (2d) 205, 217, 130 N. W. (2d) 794, this court distinguished between an action for damages against an employer and one for reinstatement. In the same case, the court also distinguished between a damage suit for wrongful expulsion against the employer as opposed to such an action against the union. In this suit for damages, under our ruling in the McDonald Case, Afram Brothers is not entitled to rely on Mr. Cheese's failure to allege an exhaustion of remedies. Instead, the employer must plead such failure as an affirmative defense.