Court Opinion

ID: 9587571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:23:49.468011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:44.525601
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I join in part I. of Justice Kennard’s dissenting opinion. I agree, for reasons concisely stated therein, that an employer with constructive rather than actual knowledge of an employee’s intolerable working conditions should not be able to escape liability for a constructive wrongful discharge.
I am also in accord with part II.C. of Justice Kennard’s dissent. The facts and allegations of this case depict an employer who may have acted from a combination of motives, some legitimate, others not. It should be for the trier of fact to untangle this complex causal web to decide whether Turner’s complaint about the company’s illegal marketing practices in 1984 substantially contributed to his constructive discharge in 1988.
Nonetheless, I concur in the judgment of the majority because I agree that, as a matter of law, Turner did not suffer in his employment “actions and conditions ... so intolerable or aggravated at the time of the employee’s resignation that a reasonable person in the employee’s position would have resigned.” (Brady v. Elixir Industries (1987) 196 Cal.App.3d 1299, 1306 [242 Cal.Rptr. 324].) I agree in principle with Justice Kennard that unjustified poor performance evaluations may, in the proper context, constitute an intolerable condition that would cause a reasonable employee to resign. The majority opinion does not declare otherwise. But, although an employee who believes he must look forward to a series of undeservedly negative performance evaluations that will blot his employment record and block his chances for advancement may be able to maintain a cause of action for *1260constructive discharge, a single “needs improvement” evaluation after four years of good evaluations does not reasonably warrant that belief. A plaintiff must show at least that the questionable evaluation is more than a singular or occasional occurrence.
Moreover, the view that the conditions of Turner’s workplace were not truly “intolerable” is reinforced by his statement that the resignation was dictated by strategic considerations in pursuit of future litigation. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1254.) This damaging admission confirms the picture that emerges from the record before us—and before the trial court—that Turner’s allegations of intolerable conditions cannot be substantiated.
On this limited basis, I concur in the judgment of the majority.