Opinion ID: 1441972
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Wrongful Termination Causes of Action

Text: Plaintiff's third amended complaint enumerates several causes of action seeking damages for alleged wrongful termination from his employment. (5a) Plaintiff initially contends the workers' compensation law does not apply at all to his claims, citing Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1983) 144 Cal. App.3d 72, 75 [192 Cal. Rptr. 643] ( Georgia-Pacific ) for the proposition that injuries from termination of employment do not constitute injuries arising out of and in the course of employment within the meaning of Labor Code section 3600. In Georgia-Pacific, an employee, who had previously been hospitalized for nonindustrial mental problems, alleged he suffered an injury to his nervous system from work-related stress. Among other things, he had to oversee three working shifts from eight to thirteen hours per day. The stress continued for nearly two years when the employer told the employee his job was being eliminated, and he could choose either to accept a lower-paying job or to be laid off. The employee went home ill and did not return to work. The Workers' Compensation Appeals Board awarded compensation for injury to the employee's nervous system arising from the employment. The employer sought review, contending that the psychological injury resulted from the termination of the employment rather than from the employment itself. The Court of Appeal held the evidence amply supported the board's finding that the injury was cumulative, and not only the result of the circumstances of the termination. [10] The court went on to state, however, that if the injury were caused by the termination, it would not have been compensable because it would not be work related. The Georgia-Pacific court's dictum is not supported by logic or precedent. As we noted in Cole v. Fair Oaks Fire Protection Dist., supra, 43 Cal.3d 148, the actions of an employer which constitute a normal part of the employment relationship ( id. at p. 160), i.e., risks encompassed within the compensation bargain, are subject to the exclusive remedy provisions of the Act. In Cole, the employer allegedly falsely accused the employee of misconduct, subjected him to a kangaroo disciplinary proceeding, publicly demoted him, gave him burdensome and menial duties, and even filed an application to force him to retire involuntarily. We held that such actions as demotion, transfer, discipline, and even the employer's attempt to force the employee into involuntary retirement, would be included within the ambit of workers' compensation. Nonconsensual termination of an employment relationship is indistinguishable from the kinds of actions enumerated in Cole and must therefore also be considered a normal and inherent part of employment. The conclusion that injuries resulting from the termination of employment may be included within the scope of workers' compensation is further indicated by our decision in Traub v. Board of Retirement (1983) 34 Cal.3d 793 [195 Cal. Rptr. 681, 670 P.2d 335], where we considered, in the context of a disability retirement statute, the question whether disability resulting from termination of employment `ar[ose] out of and in the course of [the] employment.' ( Id. at p. 795.) There, a public employee was accused of dealing in illegal drugs and the employer, Los Angeles County, dismissed him. Ultimately, the charges of drug dealing were not substantiated and the employee was reinstated. However, as a result of the stress of the accusation, investigation, and attempted termination, the employee suffered a psychiatric disability and applied for a service-connected disability retirement. The county board of retirement denied the application on the ground the disability did not `aris[e] out of and in the course of his employment' as required by Government Code section 31720. ( Traub v. Board of Retirement, supra, 34 Cal.3d 793, 795.) The statutory language at issue in Traub, governing the requirements for service-connected disability, is virtually identical to Labor Code section 3600, stating that liability for workers' compensation exists against an employer for any injury sustained by an employee arising out of and in the course of the employment. In Traub we assumed, but did not decide, that there would be no connection to the employment if the charges of illegal drug activities were sustained, but held that, even so, when an employee is investigated and disciplined [i.e., terminated] by the employer on charges of misconduct that are unproved and therefore presumably false, and the discipline set aside, the resulting psychological stress and injury arises out of and in the course of employment within the meaning of [Government Code] section 31720. Traub v. Board of Retirement, supra, 34 Cal.3d 793, 801.) We further note that Labor Code section 3202 provides that the workers' compensation law shall be liberally construed by the courts with the purpose of extending [its] benefits for the protection of persons injured in the course of their employment. Consistent with this mandate, several cases have extended workers' compensation coverage to posttermination injuries. In Peterson v. Moran (1952) 111 Cal. App.2d 766 [245 P.2d 540], an employee remained at the workplace after his discharge for the purpose of discussing with the employer the reasons for his termination, and he was injured. Despite the fact of the discharge, the court held the plaintiff was still an employee within the broadly protective purposes of the Act. A number of other cases support this view: Employees who were injured after discharge while retrieving tools at the employer's premises ( Mitchell v. Hizer (1977) 73 Cal. App.3d 499, 506-507 [140 Cal. Rptr. 790]; Mauerhan v. Markowitz (1921) 8 I.A.C. 261), or picking up a final paycheck ( Argonaut Ins. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1963) 221 Cal. App.2d 140 [34 Cal. Rptr. 206]; cf. also, Gates v. Trans Video Corp. (1979) 93 Cal. App.3d 196 [155 Cal. Rptr. 486] [employee suffered ill effects in part from emotional injury after termination while obtaining receipt for returned company property and retrieving personal effects]), have also been held to be employees, and the injuries suffered to have arisen out of the employment and in the course of the employment, for purposes of an award of workers' compensation benefits. (6) The statutory language, arising from and in the course of the employment, thus manifestly encompasses more than the period during which the contractual employment relationship technically exists. If such technically postdischarge injuries are within the province of workers' compensation as to employees invoking the coverage of workers' compensation, it must follow that such injuries would come within the workers' compensation law even when the employee attempts to renounce workers' compensation remedies. Workers' compensation jurisdiction may not be simply conferred or avoided at the option of the employee. (5b) Moreover, if postdischarge injuries may come within the scope of workers' compensation, then a fortiori injuries resulting from the discharge itself will also ordinarily be covered by workers' compensation. Our determination that injuries arising from termination of employment ordinarily arise out of and occur in the course of the employment within the meaning of Labor Code section 3600 avoids the evidentiary nightmare that might result from application of the Georgia-Pacific dictum requiring differentiation between injuries, especially psychological injuries, caused by conduct leading up to the termination and injuries caused by the termination itself ( Georgia-Pacific, supra, 144 Cal. App.3d 72). Accordingly, we conclude that both the act of termination and the acts leading up to termination necessarily arise out of and occur during and in the course of the employment. This determination does not, however, resolve the issue whether the exclusive remedy provisions of the workers' compensation law act as a bar to all causes of action arising from a discharge. As we have explained, the provisions are intended to effectuate and implement the fundamental compensation bargain said to underlie the workers' compensation scheme. Where the injury is a result of conduct, whether in the form of discharge or otherwise, not seen as reasonably coming within the compensation bargain, a separate civil action may lie.
Plaintiff's second cause of action is based on defendants' alleged violation of an express statute, section 19683, a whistleblower protection statute. The section prohibited the use of official authority by state officers or employees, or by any person, to discourage, interfere with, restrain or coerce any state employee from reporting in good faith to appropriate authorities any actual or suspected violation of law occurring on the job or directly related thereto. Section 19683 specifically provided that any person guilty of such wrongful conduct may be liable in an action for civil damages brought against him by the offended party. [11] (7a) The Court of Appeal held that plaintiff's causes of action, insofar as they were based on section 19683, were barred because the allegations of physical injury placed the action within the scope of the workers' compensation law and insofar as section 19683 was in conflict with the Act, the court held that the provisions of the Act controlled as it was the more specific of the two statutory schemes. We do not agree. First, there is considerable question whether the general statute, specific statute rule is applicable under these circumstances. Second, to the extent both statutes may be potentially applicable, the whistleblower statute (§ 19683) is the specific statute and the Act is the general statute, not vice versa. (8) Generally, where two statutes do not purport to deal with the same subject matter, there is no need to resort to the rule of construction that the more specific statute controls. The statutes simply do not cover the same subject matter and therefore are not in conflict. (See People v. Barrowclough (1974) 39 Cal. App.3d 50, 55 [113 Cal. Rptr. 852].) Nevertheless, as this case demonstrates, there may be circumstances in which the two statutes are both potentially applicable to the same set of facts. While section 19683 authorized an action against any person whatsoever who misused official government authority for the purpose of retaliation, in many cases the retaliatory acts will have been committed by the employer or an agent of the employer. If the object of the retaliatory conduct is a state employee, both statutes would potentially apply. (7b) To the extent that both section 19683 and the Act might be applicable, we must look to the purposes served by the competing statutes to determine which controls. As earlier noted, the purpose of the workers' compensation law is to provide a comprehensive scheme of compensation for all employees for industrial personal injury or death. The purpose of an action under the whistleblower protection statute, however, is to provide redress to a certain limited class of employees (state employees), for damages suffered as a consequence of the specific use of official power to deter a particular protected activity  the proper reporting of on-the-job or job-related unlawful government actions. Obviously, the goals and the subject matter governed by the whistleblower protection statute are far more narrowly circumscribed, more specific, than the Act. While it may appear that both statutes are applicable, section 19683 was clearly the more specific statute, and therefore was controlling. (See People v. Tanner (1979) 24 Cal.3d 514, 521 [156 Cal. Rptr. 450, 596 P.2d 328].) As we held in Commodore Home Systems, Inc. v. Superior Court (1982) 32 Cal.3d 211, 215 [185 Cal. Rptr. 270, 649 P.2d 912], the provision of a statutory cause of action for violation of a right ordinarily includes all damages generally available to civil litigants. Defendants argue that section 19683 was intended to provide for recovery of only those classes of damages not otherwise already provided under other laws, i.e., that the Legislature did not intend the civil action to include any damages for personal injury, as those would be covered within workers' compensation, or for economic damages provided under the civil service system. We reject the contention. If the Legislature had considered workers' compensation benefits and remedies under the Civil Service Act (Gov. Code, § 18500 et seq.) to be adequate, it would not have been necessary to add the whistleblower statute, expressly relating to the state civil service. (Preface to Stats. 1971, ch. 1259, § 1, p. 2473.) Indeed, under defendants' interpretation, the whistleblower statute would provide virtually no protection to the very category of employees it was designed to protect; only those state employees exempt from civil service and who did not suffer any disability as a result of the retaliatory harassment could be afforded any relief. (Cf. State Personnel Bd. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1985) 39 Cal.3d 422, 429, fn. 6 [217 Cal. Rptr. 16, 703 P.2d 354] and related text.) (9) We do not presume that the Legislature performs idle acts, nor do we construe statutory provisions so as to render them superfluous. ( People v. Craft (1986) 41 Cal.3d 554, 560 [224 Cal. Rptr. 626, 715 P.2d 585]; Gates v. Salmon (1868) 35 Cal. 576, 587.) The whistleblower statute was a legislative expression intended to encourage and protect the reporting of unlawful governmental activities, and to effectively deter retaliation for such reporting. (7c) The Legislature clearly intended to afford an additional remedy to those already granted under other provisions of the law; otherwise section 19683 would be rendered meaningless. (Cf. Western Oil & Gas Assn. v. Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control Dist. (1989) 49 Cal.3d 408 [261 Cal. Rptr. 384, 777 P.2d 157].) As cogently explained in Jones v. Los Angeles Community College Dist. (1988) 198 Cal. App.3d 794 [244 Cal. Rptr. 37], the evils addressed by the whistleblower statute are different from those addressed by the workers' compensation law, and the Legislature cannot have `intend[ed] that the objectives [to] be defeated by the bar of the exclusive remedy provision.' ( Id. at p. 807.) Thus, the Legislature's enactment of specific statutory protection for whistleblowing activity, including a civil action for damages incurred from official retaliatory acts, defines the protected activity as a specific statutory exception to the provisions of the workers' compensation law; such conduct lies well outside the compensation bargain. (10) (See fn. 12.), (7d) Accordingly, the Court of Appeal incorrectly determined that plaintiff could not, solely because of the allegations of physical injury, state a cause of action under section 19683. [12] The judgment as to this cause of action must therefore be reversed.
In his brief, plaintiff argued that he can state a cause of action for wrongful termination in violation of fundamental public policy (see Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co., supra, 27 Cal.3d 167; Foley v. Interactive Data Corp. (1988) 47 Cal.3d 654 [254 Cal. Rptr. 211, 765 P.2d 373]) despite the exclusive-remedy provisions because such a termination is not a legitimate risk of employment, i.e., it is conduct which falls outside the compensation bargain. At oral argument, however, plaintiff took the position that this court need not reach the other causes of action insofar as this focused statutory remedy [i.e., under section 19683] will provide him relief. For this reason, and because the Court of Appeal has not yet had an opportunity to address these arguments, we will reverse the Court of Appeal's disposition of this cause of action and remand to the Court of Appeal to allow it to determine whether plaintiff may state a claim for wrongful termination in contravention of fundamental public policy. ( Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co., supra, 27 Cal.3d 167.) (11) Plaintiff has also attempted to state a cause of action for breach of contract or breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. However, because plaintiff is a civil service employee, he cannot state such a cause of action. [I]t is well settled in California that public employment is not held by contract but by statute and that, insofar as the duration of such employment is concerned, no employee has a vested contractual right to continue in employment beyond the time or contrary to the terms and conditions fixed by law. ( Miller v. State of California (1977) 18 Cal.3d 808, 813-814 [135 Cal. Rptr. 386, 557 P.2d 970]; see also Boren v. State Personnel Board (1951) 37 Cal.2d 634, 641 [234 P.2d 981]; Valenzuela v. State of California (1987) 194 Cal. App.3d 916, 920 [240 Cal. Rptr. 45].) Nor can plaintiff state a cause of action for tortious breach of the implied covenant of good faith, since that cause of action, in the employment context, cannot support an award of tort damages. ( Foley v. Interactive Data Corp., supra, 47 Cal.3d 654.) Accordingly, we will affirm the Court of Appeal's decision with respect to this cause of action. Finally, plaintiff has alleged a cause of action simply for wrongful termination. We affirm the Court of Appeal's disposition with respect to this cause of action because it merely duplicates the additional claims based upon the alleged wrongful termination.