Opinion ID: 1426977
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Employee Manual

Text: Appellant contends that the employee manual that he received a week after he began working for the Holiday Inn became part of his employment contract and afforded him certain protections which appellees violated in connection with his dismissal. The trial court determined that the handbook provisions cited by appellant either furnished no guarantees of permanent employment or were not violated by appellees. The authorities are split as to whether procedures and policies set out in an employee handbook give rise to rights under the employment contract. See, e.g., Toussaint v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Michigan, 408 Mich. 579, 292 N.W.2d 880 (1980) (manual gave rise to contractual rights even though employee learned of its existence after his hiring); Gates v. Life of Montana Insurance Company, supra, 638 P.2d at 1066 (handbook distributed subsequent to hiring did not become part of employee's contract). We need not decide this issue to dispose of the instant case, however, because none of the cited manual provisions offer comfort to an employee dismissed in response to economic adversity. We emphasize that nothing in the record suggests that the hotel's budget concerns were a pretext. Appellant claims that appellees violated two specific sections of the manual, one entitled Disciplinary Memos and the other, Probationary Period. The written warnings to an erring employee required under the Disciplinary Memos section have no application to the facts at hand, since the inn's management faced a financial, not a disciplinary, problem. The Probationary Period provision contemplates a written evaluation of the employee's performance after 30 days of employment: All employees hired are on a 30-day probationary period. After this time, your Department Head will evaluate you in writing, to determine your suitability for continued employment and make suggestions and requirements for you to use as a tool for improvement. Rompf contends that appellees' failure to evaluate him within his six weeks of employment constitutes an actionable breach of contract. Even if it were reasonable to expect the department heads of a newly opened hotel to have evaluated the many recently hired employees within six weeks, an exemplary report would not have prevented appellees from dismissing Rompf for economic reasons. Thus, the alleged breach of this particular section did not cause damages to the appellant. We have found no provision in the manual governing staff reductions brought on by declining revenues. In short, appellant's evidence fails to support his contention that appellees breached the terms of the employee manual in discharging him to ease economic problems. Appellant has proposed three bases upon which to modify the at will rule concerning employment contracts. Appellant's evidence, however, fails to support application of any of these doctrines. We conclude, therefore, that appellees are entitled to prevail as a matter of law with respect to appellant's claim of breach of his employment contract. The summary judgment is affirmed.