Court Opinion

ID: 9663536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:41:58.656588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:51.498721
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the plaintiff has not satisfied her burden of identifying a fundamental and well-defined mandate of public policy which the discharge is alleged to have violated.
I do not, however, join the dicta in the opinion concluding that the plaintiff’s claims would fail even if she had adequately identified a public policy embodied in statutory or constitutional law. As I observed in my concurrence in Bushko v. Miller Brewing Co., 134 Wis. 2d 136, 141, 396 N.W.2d 167 (1986), in which I was joined by Chief Justice Nathan S. Heffernan and Justice William A. Bablitch, the majority’s requiring a command and refusal does not comport with the wrongful discharge rule stated and applied in prior cases. See Brockmeyer v. Dun & Bradstreet, 113 Wis. 2d 561, 335 N.W.2d 834 (1983), Wandry v. Bull’s Eye Credit, 129 Wis. 2d 37, 384 N.W.2d 325 (1986). The majority’s requirement places form over substance. Almost every claim may be cast in the “refusal to violate” formulation.
I am authorized to state that Justice William A. Bablitch joins in this opinion.