Court Opinion

ID: 9613441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:16:54.56364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:28.869844
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Justice,
dissenting.
I persist in my vote to affirm the trial court in this case. Like Justice Cardine, in whose dissent I join, I am at a loss to understand what more Mobil Coal Producing, Inc. could do to make it clear to an employee that he was entering into an employment-at-will arrangement. I am satisfied that this was an employment-at-will. That relationship was not modified by the handbook. I am not persuaded that there is any more solid majority support for reversal than there was with respect to the first opinion.
I see no need to reiterate what I said in my dissenting opinion in McDonald v. Mobil Coal Producing, Inc., 789 P.2d 866, 872 (Wyo.1990), Thomas, J., dissenting. I simply emphasize that, in all respects, the dissenting opinion is still sound so far as it treats with the issue relating to the contract of employment.
In this new effort in which the majority reverses the summary judgment, reliance is placed upon Alexander v. Phillips Oil Company, 707 P.2d 1385 (Wyo.1985), and substantial reliance is placed upon Jimenez v. Colorado Interstate Gas Company, 690 F.Supp. 977 (D.Wyo.1988). In invoking these authorities, the majority simply fails to recognize the actual employment-at-will arrangement that was entered into between McDonald and Mobil Coal Producing, Inc. That arrangement is captured by. quotation on page three of the majority slip opinion. From that point on, it is ignored.
I submit, however, that the fact of that specific employment-at-will arrangement serves to distinguish this case from both Alexander and Jimenez. There are other distinguishing facts. The employee handbook, in this instance, was not adopted and issued after the time that McDonald was employed. It is difficult for me to understand how it could amend, or could in some manner have changed, the clear employment-at-will that was documented. In Jimenez, there was no separate document articulating an employment-at-will, and the court was dealing only with the factors of employment plus the existence of a handbook. While it might be appropriate to emphasize in an employee’s handbook, that was issued without a separate document articulating the employment arrangement, the caveat explaining that the handbook is not an employment contract, that requirement is far less imperative when one recognizes that the handbook was generally available to employees of Mobil Coal Producing, Inc. After the handbook already had been published and issued, McDonald signed a document that provided that the “employment is terminable at will.” Under these circumstances, the subsequent delivery of the handbook simply did not make any difference.
In my opinion, this case strikes the death knell for employment-at-will in Wyoming. It says, in effect, that even though there is a clear statement by the employee that the relationship with the employer is an employment-at-will, after the employment commences, the employer cannot engage in any dialogue with the employee about the conditions and circumstances of the employment. If any such dialogue occurs, it will be considered to have amended the arrangement in such a way that the question of employment must be submitted to a jury. I lack the imagination to visualize any situation in which dialogue about the conditions and circumstances of the employment would not occur and, consequently, it is hereafter impossible to have an employment-at-will in Wyoming.
The summary judgment entered by the trial court in this case should be affirmed.