Court Opinion

ID: 9552639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:14:26.053898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:28:28.716954
License: Public Domain

*119JONES, J.
David Patton filed suit against J. C. Penney Co. and two supervisors, McKay and Chapin, alleging both “wrongful discharge” from employment and “outrageous conduct.”1 The trial court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on both counts.
Plaintiff then appealed to the Court of Appeals. That court affirmed the dismissal of the wrongful discharge claim, but reversed on the intentional infliction of severe emotional distress claim, sending it back for trial in the circuit court. 75 Or App 638, 707 P2d 1256 (1985). In addressing the wrongful discharge claim, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that there are exceptions to the general rule that an employer may discharge an employe at any time and for any reason, but the court found that plaintiffs claim did not qualify under any exception to the general rule.
On the intentional infliction of severe emotional distress claim, the Court of Appeals concluded that a jury could find from the facts pled that “defendants exceeded the bounds of social toleration when they terminated plaintiffs employment, and that they acted with a reckless disregard of the predictable effects of their actions on plaintiff.” We conclude that plaintiff has no claim under either theory.
This case comes to us on the pleadings, which allege the following facts:
Defendant J. C. Penney Co. hired plaintiff in 1969. Plaintiff worked in Eugene until 1980 when he was transferred to Portland where he worked as a merchandising manager. In 1981, the store manager, defendant McKay, told plaintiff to break off a social relationship with a female co-employe. Plaintiff responded by telling McKay that he did not *120socialize with the co-employe at work and that he intended to continue seeing her on his own time. Apparently, the social relationship did not interfere with plaintiffs performance at work, for during this time he earned several awards for “Merchant of the Month” and one for “Merchant of the Year.”
McKay later, while interrogating other employes about whether plaintiff had broken off the relationship, made statements to the effect that if plaintiff wanted to keep working he had to discontinue the relationship. Although no written or unwritten policy, rule or regulation proscribed socializing between employes, other employes told plaintiff that McKay disfavored plaintiffs fraternization with the female co-employe. Nevertheless, plaintiff continued seeing the co-employe. When McKay warned plaintiff in late 1981 that his job performance was unsatisfactory and that he would be fired if there was no improvement, plaintiff asked for a transfer to another department. McKay denied the request. In February 1982, McKay terminated plaintiffs employment for unsatisfactory job performance. The district manager, defendant Chapin, approved the termination.
WRONGFUL DISCHARGE
Generally an employer may discharge an employe at any time and for any reason, absent a contractual, statutory or constitutional requirement. Simpson v. Western Graphics, 293 Or 96, 99, 643 P2d 1276 (1982); Nees v. Hocks, 272 Or 210, 216, 536 P2d 512 (1975). Termination of employment ordinarily does not create a tortious cause of action. Nees, 272 Or at 216. We have set forth exceptions to the general rule which are discussed in a series of cases.
In Nees v. Hocks, supra, the employer fired the employe for disregarding its wishes that the employe ask to be excused from jury duty. In fact, the employe told the court clerk that she would like to serve on jury duty. This court held that the jury system and jury duty are important American institutions and citizen obligations: “If an employer were permitted with impunity to discharge an employe for fulfilling her obligation to jury duty, the jury system would be adversely affected. The will of the community would be thwarted.” 272 Or at 219. Defendant could thus be held liable for discharging plaintiff for serving on the jury.
*121In Delaney v. Taco Time Int’l, 297 Or 10, 681 P2d 114 (1984), this court held that an employer could be held liable for discharging an employe who refused to sign a false and potentially defamatory statement about a former co-employe. The court found that Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution, recognizes an obligation on members of society not to defame others. Therefore, the court said that the defendant could not discharge plaintiff for fulfilling a societal obligation. 297 Or at 17.
A wrongful discharge claim may also exist when an employe is fired for pursuing private statutory rights directly relating to the employe’s status or role as an employe. Holien v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 298 Or 76, 90, 689 P2d 1292 (1984). In Holien, the court found plaintiffs allegations that she was fired for resisting sexual harassment sufficient to state a claim because on-the-job sexual harassment by supervisors is forbidden by state and federal law. See also Brown v. Transcon Lines, 284 Or 597, 588 P2d 1087 (1978) (employe who alleged that he had been discharged for filing workers’ compensation claim allowed to bring a tort claim because statutes forbidding discrimination against employe who files workers’ compensation claim constitute legislative recognition of an important public policy and the discharge frustrated that substantial public interest).
We have rejected wrongful discharge claims under a third category where the law provides other remedies than a common law remedy for wrongful discharge. For example, in Walsh v. Consolidated Freightways, 278 Or 347, 563 P2d 1205 (1977), this court found that an additional tort remedy for wrongful discharge was unnecessary when an employe was discharged for complaining about a safety violation for which there were statutory remedies.
Plaintiff does not allege that his discharge was for pursuing statutory rights related to his status as an employe. Nor does plaintiff allege interference with an interest of public importance equal or analogous to serving on a jury or avoiding false, defamatory remarks. Plaintiff claims that certain of his “fundamental, inalienable human rights were compromised, put on the auction block, and made the subject of an illicit barter in that he was forced to forego these rights or to purchase them with his job.” He claims that the employer *122invaded his personal right of privacy and that the employer could not fire him for pursuing a private right. But these claims blur “rights” against governmental infringement with “rights” against a private employer. Plaintiffs acts were voluntary and no state or federal law mandates or prohibits discrimination on that account. It may seem harsh that an employer can fire an employe because of dislike of the employe’s personal lifestyle, but because the plaintiff cannot show that the actions fit under an exception to the general rule, plaintiff is subject to the traditional doctrine of “fire at will.”
The Court of Appeals is affirmed on this issue.
INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF SEVERE EMOTIONAL DISTRESS
Count II of plaintiffs allegations demonstrates that he is attempting to plead the emerging tort of intentional infliction of severe emotional distress, which consists of several elements. First, ordinarily a plaintiff must allege that a defendant intended to inflict severe mental or emotional distress. It is not enough that he intentionally acted in a way that causes such distress. Second, a defendant’s act must in fact cause a plaintiff severe mental or emotional distress. Third, a defendant’s actions must consist of “some extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct” or the actions must exceed “any reasonable limit of social toleration.” Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, 292 Or 131, 135, 137, 637 P2d 126 (1981).
Summarizing plaintiffs pleadings, we observe that plaintiff alleged:
(1) Defendants intended to inflict severe emotional distress on plaintiff.
(2) The acts did cause severe emotional distress.
(3) The impermissible act that constituted “extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct” was McKay’s dismissal of the plaintiff because he asserted his private right to associate with a female co-employe.
Thus, the pleadings are technically sufficient if the underlying act exceeds the bounds of socially tolerable conduct.
Even if defendant fired plaintiff for refusing to break *123off a relationship with a co-employe and this was intended to, and in fact did, inflict severe emotional distress, the act of firing is not beyond the bounds of socially acceptable behavior. We have just held that the act of discharging the plaintiff because his supervisor did not approve of plaintiffs private relationship with a co-employe is not actionable on a theory of wrongful discharge.
Of course, the fact that an act is lawful does not mean that it is not actionable if the legal right is improperly manipulated or abused. But here, the employer had the right to discharge the employe at will; he warned the employe that he would be discharged if he pursued a private right and he did in fact discharge him. This may be bad conduct or offensive conduct, but it is not an “extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable” behavior. Private employers who engage in the free enterprise system and risk their own capital can fire employes at any time and at will. Many improvements have been made to the employer-employe relationship through tenure, statutes, contracts and the like, but in most respects employment remains an arms length, “take it or leave it” relationship.
The key focus in intentional infliction of severe emotional distress cases is not on the result, but on the purpose and the means used to achieve it. In Brewer v. Erwin, 287 Or 435, 457, 600 P2d 398 (1979), for example, this court held that:
“[The] essence [of the tort] is that the infliction of actual mental suffering on the plaintiff is the deliberate purpose of defendant’s conduct, although that conduct may of course have an ulterior objective * * *. The additional requirement that defendant’s means of inflicting the injury must have been extraordinary is explained as necessary, first, to distinguish actionable conduct from the insults, ill temper, and offensive jokes that persons are expected to endure under contemporary standards of behavior, and second, to provide a setting of objective reality for a claim of harm that otherwise rests only on evidence of the plaintiffs subjective reaction divorced from physiological or other tangible injury. * * *” (Citations omitted.)
The intentional infliction of severe emotional distress claim in Brewer was based on defendant’s effort to frighten or bully plaintiff out of her apartment by particularly obnoxious *124means: disconnecting utilities, using physical violence and threats of violence, and demolishing the building under her feet. Similarly, in Turman v. Central Billing Bureau, Inc., 279 Or 443, 568 P2d 1382 (1977), a debt collector purposely employed abusive and threatening telephone calls to shame and frighten the debtor, and this conduct was particularly unjustifiable after the collection agency knew that the debtor had arranged a settlement directly with the creditor. Again, in Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, supra, the defendant deliberately used psychic distress in an attempt to coerce an employe into admitting a crime, in the face of only “scanty evidence” of wrongdoing.2
In the case at bar, the alleged manner in which plaintiff was discharged does not reach the level of intolerable conduct described in the aforementioned cases. We agree with the Court of Appeals dissent that McKay’s alleged behavior was “rude, boorish, tyrannical, churlish and mean—and those are its best points,” but that it was not “outrageous in the extreme,” and that the allegations do not support plaintiffs claim for intentional infliction of severe emotional distress. 75 Or App at 650.
The Court of Appeals is affirmed as to the wrongful discharge claim and reversed as to the intentional infliction of severe emotional harm claim.

 We have stated before that the label of “outrageous conduct” does not help our analysis. In Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, 292 Or 131, 135-36, 637 P2d 126 (1981), this court stated:
“In attempting to articulate what separates actionable conduct from the ordinary run of crudely aggressive, overbearing, or ill-tempered behavior, Prosser and the Restatement turned to adjectives like ‘outrageous’ and ‘extreme.’ These are not words of art; other words or phrases could serve as well. All are designed only to express the outer end of some gradation or scale of impropriety and social disapproval. No more can be conveyed by defining one epithet by another. * * *”

 The earlier case of Rockhill v. Pollard, 259 Or 54, 485 P2d 28 (1971), differs in that the court required a lesser degree of purposive abuse in the relation of a physician toward persons seeking his professional aid.