Court Opinion

ID: 9660474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:14:18.132814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:19.862636
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, CHIEF JUSTICE
¶ 32. (concurring). I agree with the majority opinion's resolution of the preliminary question in this case, that the plaintiff was discharged in violation of a fundamental and well-defined public policy. I also agree that the case should be remanded to determine *122whether front pay should be awarded and, if so, how much.
¶ 33. I write separately: (1) because the availability of an award of front pay for discharge of an at-will employee is not obvious and I want to explain why I conclude that front pay should be available; (2) to suggest several considerations the circuit court might entertain in awarding front pay upon remand; and (3) to explore the respective roles of the circuit court and the jury on remand in determining front pay in lieu of reinstatement.
I — I
¶ 34. The dual goals of a Brockmeyer cause of action for wrongful discharge of an at-will employee are to make wronged employees whole and to deter employers' violations of public policy.1 The court's decisions relating to public policy wrongful discharge give little practical guidance concerning remedies generally. Nonetheless, the Brockmeyer court set forth certain general propositions regarding remedies in its effort to paint the outlines of the newly recognized cause of action: (1) the remedial goal is to make the wronged employee whole and to advance well-established public policies; (2) remedies should be controlled by contract rather than tort principles; thus foresee*123ability and mitigation limit the range of available remedies; and (3) the most appropriate remedies are reinstatement and back pay. Brockmeyer v. Dun & Bradstreet, 113 Wis. 2d 561, 574-76, 335 N.W.2d 834 (1983).2
¶ 35. While reinstatement and back pay are, as Brockmeyer stated, the most appropriate remedies, reinstatement is not appropriate in certain cases. In these cases, I conclude that an award of front pay should be available to fill the remedial gap. Front pay is necessary to achieve the principles set forth in Brockmeyer: (1) front pay comports with the Brockmeyer principle that reinstatement and back pay are the most appropriate remedies; (2) while reinstatement is an important remedy for making wronged employees whole, there are often serious obstacles to reinstatement and it is rarely ordered; (3) front pay is designed to achieve precisely what reinstatement would achieve, were reinstatement feasible: to place the wronged employee in the position he or she would be in had there been no wrongful discharge; (4) awarding front pay comports with the Brockmeyer contract theory of damages for wrongful discharge; and (5) allowing front pay comports with the Brockmeyer court's reliance on Wisconsin and federal wrongful dis*124charge statutes for crafting the common law cause of action for wrongful discharge.
¶ 36. First, front pay comports with the Brockmeyer principle that reinstatement and back pay are the most appropriate remedies. If employers know that only reinstatement and back pay are legally available, and that front pay is not available in lieu of reinstatement, reinstatement will cease to be available in fact. Barring front pay as a substitute for reinstatement will create a perverse incentive for employers who wrongfully discharge employees in violation of public policy to make reinstatement not feasible. In essence, were front pay not available when reinstatement is not feasible the deterrent effect of the cause of action would be undermined or the employer could discharge an employee in violation of public policy by paying a minimum amount of damages.3
¶ 37. Second, while reinstatement is an important remedy for making wronged employees whole, there are often serious obstacles to reinstatement and *125it is rarely ordered.4 Reinstatement has high costs for employers and employees,5 as well as for the courts.6
*126¶ 38. Because of the costs of reinstatement for employers, employees and courts it has been suggested that front pay more efficiently compensates the future economic loss flowing from a wrongful discharge. Chief Judge Posner has offered the following economic analysis supporting front pay:
[T]he social costs of [reinstatement] may be avoided by corrective transactions. Suppose that reinstatement would be worth $100,000 to the employee but would cost the employer $150,000 because of a negative effect of reinstatement on the employer's productivity; in contrast, an award of $100,000 would cost the employer only $100,000 while benefiting the employee to the tune of $100,000. The substitution of front pay for reinstatement would produce a savings in social costs of $50,000 — yet if front pay were unavailable, the employer might buy out the employee's right of reinstatement, since at any price between $100,000 and $150,000 both parties would be made better off by such a buy-out. Front pay may still be the socially preferable form of relief, because it avoids the need for a tricky transaction.
*127Avitia v. Metropolitan Club of Chicago, Inc., 49 F.3d 1219, 1232 (7th Cir. 1995) (citation omitted).
¶ 39. Third, front pay is designed to achieve precisely what reinstatement would achieve, were reinstatement feasible: to place the wronged employee in the same position he or she would be in had there been no wrongful discharge. Front pay makes up the difference between the earnings an employee would receive were the old employment to continue and the earnings expected in present and future employment. Thus, front pay substitutes for reinstatement in that it remedies future economic losses flowing from the wrongful discharge. In conjunction with recovery of past wage loss through a back pay award, front pay, like reinstatement, remedies the wrongful discharge itself and assures that the wronged employee is made whole.
¶ 40. When reinstatement is not feasible, back pay is insufficient to make a wronged employee whole. Back pay compensates for the loss of wages until judgment; it does not remedy the wrongful discharge itself. Reinstatement remedies the wrongful discharge and precludes economic loss that would otherwise flow from the wrongful discharge. If reinstatement is not feasible and the discharged employee's new employment opportunities are inferior, the employee should receive front pay. "The logic of such an award, if the purpose. . .is indeed to make the plaintiff whole, is undeniable." McKnight v. General Motors Corp., 908 F.2d 104, 116-17 (7th Cir. 1990).7
*128¶ 41. Front pay fulfills the expectation interest where otherwise there would be a remedial void. "Wrongfully discharged employees may have valid claims for lost future wages. Such an award of 'front pay' is predicated on the 'rightful place' theory; i.e., that wrongfully discharged employees are entitled to the benefit of the jobs they would have obtained but for the discharge." Paul H. Tobias, Litigating Wrongful Discharge Claims, § 8.12 atpp. 8-37-38 (6/91).
¶ 42. Fourth, awarding front pay comports with the Brockmeyer contract theory of damages for wrongful discharge. For a remedy to be available in a contract action the fact of loss must be foreseeable. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 351 (1981). It is enough that the loss was foreseeable as a probable, as distinguished from a necessary, result of the breach. Id. at cmt. a.
¶ 43. An employer might argue that because an at-will employee has no expectation of future employment with this employer for a definite term, the loss of future wages is unforeseeable and front pay is inappropriate. This argument confuses the foreseeability of the harm, lost future wages, with the foreseeability of the amount of the loss. Only the former need be foresee*129able; the latter need only be reasonably calculable.8 Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 352 (1981).
¶ 44. The harm of future wage loss to a wrongfully discharged indefinite term employee is foreseeable. Although an at-will employee may be discharged at any time for many reasons, or no reason, an at-will employee may not be discharged for a reason that violates public policy. It is foreseeable that if wrongfully discharged, the at-will employee will suffer economic harm due to many factors including having to begin new employment at or near the bottom of a seniority or experience-based pay scale. That harm flows necessarily from the employer's wrongful conduct.9
¶ 45. The argument against the availability of front pay, that" [s]uch employment relationships do not exist for a foreseeable, definite period of time," is not an argument that the loss of future wages is unforeseeable. Rather it is an argument that the amount of the loss is difficult to ascertain with certainty. This is doubtless true.10 As one court has put it:
*130The biggest problem in awarding future damages for the wrongful discharge of an at-will employee is avoiding speculation... .It is well established, however, that "while recovery will be denied if it is speculative and uncertain whether damage has been sustained, recovery will not be denied merely because the amount of damages is difficult to ascertain."
Smith v. Smithway Motor Xpress, Inc., 464 N.W.2d 682, 688 (Iowa 1990)(citation omitted)(reversing trial court refusal to submit front pay question to jury in wrongful discharge action). The fact that a remedy may require a degree of uncertainty in calculating the amount of the loss is not a reason to preclude it as a matter of law. The amount of damages must be decided with all the certainty the case permits.
¶ 46. Indeed the black letter rule in contract actions involving employment seems to be that recovery of damages includes front pay. State Bar of Wisconsin, The Law of Damages in Wisconsin, § 23.2 at p.23-3 (2d ed. 12/95) (Russell M. Ware, ed.); State Bar of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Employment Law, § 13.40 at p. 13-14 (4/95). See, e.g., Hale v. Stoughton Hospital Ass'n, Inc., 126 Wis. 2d 267, 279-81, 376 N.W.2d 89 (Ct. App. 1985) (indefinite employment term, loss of future wages and pension benefits arising in ordinary course of breach of employment contract foreseeable as matter of law).
¶ 47. Although the measure of a front-pay remedy is uncertain, it is appropriate where necessary to make the wronged employee whole. As one court has said: "Substantial justice is better than exact injus*131tice." Weinglass v. Gibson, 155 A. 439, 440 (Pa. 1931) (discussing need to award contract damages even where uncertain in amount).
¶ 48. Fifth, allowing front pay comports with the Brockmeyer court's reliance on Wisconsin and federal wrongful discharge statutes for crafting the common law cause of action for wrongful discharge. The Brockmeyer court, 113 Wis. 2d at 568, 575, determined that as with state public policy statutes, reinstatement and back pay are the most appropriate remedies.11 Yet the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act (WFEA), provides for a remedy of "compensation in lieu of reinstatement if requested by any party." Wis. Stat. § 111.389(4)(c) *132(1995-96).12 Similarly, in federal wrongful discharge statutes, front pay has been recognized as a remedy in lieu of reinstatement.13
*133¶ 49. Consistent with the state and federal statutes which seek to deter violations of public policy by employers and to make employees whole, a plaintiff in a common law public policy wrongful discharge action should have available the remedy of front pay when reinstatement is not feasible.
¶ 50. For these reasons all but one of the jurisdictions14 that have considered the issue of the availability of front pay in public policy wrongful discharge actions have concluded that front pay is available where reinstatement is not feasible.15 I, too, conclude that front pay should be an available remedy in lieu of reinstatement when reinstatement is not feasible. Front pay is consistent with the principles set out in Brockmeyer and state and federal statutes which *134seek to deter wrongful discharges violating public policy.
II.
¶ 51. Because this case is remanded for determination of front pay, I wish to set forth several factors that the circuit court might appropriately consider in awarding front pay. Front pay is, as one court stated, a "special remedy, not necessarily warranted in every case." Sasser v. Averitt Express, Inc., 839 S.W.2d 422, 433, 439 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1992).
f 52. The following factors, among others, should be considered in determining the propriety and amount of front pay when reinstatement is not feasible: (1) the employee's seniority at the time of the wrongful discharge; (2) the likelihood that the employment would have continued, and for how long, but for the wrongful discharge; (3) the employee's work and life expectancy; (4) the employee's efforts at mitigating his or her damages, including the nature of new employment, if any; (5) the availability of comparable employment opportunities; and (6) the length of time required to find another job. See Sasser, 839 S.W.2d at 434.
¶ 53. In this case the employee was an employee of long standing. Although an employee at will, there was no indication that he was going to be discharged. According to the record the employee's salary level had been achieved in part through seniority, and his skills and employment history made it unlikely that he could obtain a comparable salary elsewhere. Front pay may be proper in this case if reinstatement is found not feasible.
*135I — I HH HH
¶ 54. Finally, the court s decisions relating to public policy wrongful discharge actions give no guidance concerning the respective roles of the circuit court and the jury in determining the propriety and amount of remedies. The majority opinion, without discussion, mandates that front pay is to be determined by the court rather than by a jury.
¶ 55. A growing number of courts in common law and statutory wrongful discharge actions have concluded that the question of the amount of front pay, and not simply its propriety, should be decided by the trial court, not by a jury. See generally Richard J. Seryak, Front-Pay Awards in Employment Litigation: An Issue for the Judge or Jury? 17 Employee Relations L.J. 131 (1991). The most common rationale for assigning this duty to the court is that front pay is essentially an equitable remedy in this context. See Stafford v. Electronic Data Sys. Corp., 741 F. Supp. 664, 665-67 (E.D. Mich. 1990) (applying Michigan common law);16 Sasser, 839 S.W.2d at 434-36. Front pay is awarded in lieu of the equitable remedy of reinstatement and is predicated on the equitable principle of making a wronged employee whole where there would otherwise be a remedial gap left by only awarding back pay.
¶ 56. Courts have noted that it is practical to have the court charged with deciding the propriety of front pay also decide the amount. Entrusting the front-pay award to the court may also assure that front pay is *136not excessive or overly speculative under the circumstances of the particular case.
¶ 57. The roles of the circuit court and jury were not briefed or argued by the parties and therefore I, unlike the majority opinion, would not decide this issue. I would remand this cause to the circuit court for determination of whether, after considering argument by the parties, a front-pay award should be made by a circuit court or by a jury. In the alternative, I would order additional briefing in this court.
¶ 58. The majority directs that the circuit court is to decide the amount of the front-pay award, if appropriate. In this case the circuit court presented the issue to a jury. Should the circuit court determine that the plaintiff is entitled to front pay, the circuit court may consider the jury award of front pay in this case as advisory. Wis. Stat. § 805.02(1) (1995-96).
¶ 59. For the foregoing reasons, I concur.
¶ 60. I am authorized to state that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley joins this opinion.

 Cases subsequent to Brockmeyer v. Dun & Bradstreet, 113 Wis. 2d 561, 335 N.W.2d 834 (1983), have more fully addressed the contours of the cause of action. Wandry v. Bull's Eye Credit Union, 129 Wis. 2d 37, 384 N.W.2d 325 (1986); Bushko v. Miller Brewing Co., 134 Wis. 2d 136, 396 N.W.2d 167 (1986); Schultz v. Production Stamping Corp., 148 Wis. 2d 17, 434 N.W.2d 780 (1989); Winkelman v. Beloit Mem'l Hosp., 168 Wis. 2d 12, 483 N.W.2d 211 (1992). None of these cases has addressed the question of remedies.

 For discussions of Brockmeyer's contract approach, see Henry H. Perritt, Jr., Employee Dismissal Law and Practice, § 1.2 at p. 8 (3d ed. 1992); Dan B. Dobbs, Law of Remedies: Damages—Equity—Restitution, § 6.10(2) at p. 195-96 and nn.13, 14 (2d ed. 1993). See also John C. McCarthy, Recovery of Damages for Wrongful Discharge, § 1.31 at pp. 118-19 (1990) (doctrine of foreseeability and the unavailability of punitive damages characterize "elusive" differences between contract and tort damages for public policy wrongful discharge).

 Unless the court holds as it does, employers would have the further incentive of admitting to liability instantly after wrongfully discharging an employee and employees would be encouraged to delay asserting a cause of action. In that way employers would seek to reduce amounts they pay to wrongfully discharged employees and employees would seek to increase the amounts they receive. The deterrent effect of the public policy wrongful discharge cause of action would be seriously threatened.

 Professor Dobbs has noted as follows: "Common law remedies for an employer's breach of an employment contract have not traditionally included specific performance. Although reinstatement has been mentioned quite casually in some common law wrongful discharge cases [quoting Brockmeyer], it seems not actually to have been sought or granted." Dobbs, Law of Remedies, § 6.10(2) at p. 198 and n.28 (citations omitted). See also Lex K. Larson, Unjust Dismissal, § 9A.02[2] at p. 9A—9 (3/97) ("reinstatement is not normally awarded, due to the often deteriorated employment relationship").
Nonetheless, many courts consider reinstatement "the preferred remedy." See, e.g., Sasser v. Averitt Express, Inc., 839 S.W.2d 422, 439 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1992); Stafford v. Electronic Data Sys. Corp., 749 F. Supp. 781, 785 (E.D. Mich. 1990)(applying Michigan law); McNeil v. Economics Lab., Inc., 800 F.2d 111, 118 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1041 (1987), overruled on other grounds, 860 F.2d 834 (1988).
The majority opinion does not discuss whether the employee in this case sought, or whether the employer offered, reinstatement. Reinstatement was not ordered.

 Courts evaluating the feasibility of reinstatement have identified various obstacles to the remedy for both employers and employees. No suitable position may be available; other employees may be displaced or otherwise disrupted; or, quite commonly, there is such hostility that a productive and amicable working relationship would be impossible, such that the conditions would amount to a constructive discharge. See Sasser, 839 S.W.2d at 433; Stafford, 749 F. Supp. at 785-86; McNeil, 800 F.2d at 118—19; Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 367(1) (1981) (noting "undesirability of compelling the continuance of personal association after disputes have arisen"). These same considerations are often used as factors in determining the feasibility of reinstatement.

 Reinstatement imposes costs on courts which front pay may not. A reinstatement order requires either careful contin*126ued monitoring or risks spurring additional litigation surrounding issues of compliance and retaliation. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals described the costs of reinstatement for courts as follows:
Courts of equity traditionally have refused to order specific performance of employment contracts, because it is difficult and time-consuming for a court to supervise the parties' conduct in an ongoing and possibly long-term relationship of employment. . . .Courts do not want to involve themselves in the industrial equivalent of matrimonial squabbling.
McKnight v. General Motors Corp., 908 F.2d 104, 115 (7th Cir. 1990).

 The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals discussed front pay under Title VII as follows, without deciding the issue:
[T]he Supreme Court has said that the remedial scheme in Title VII is designed to make the plaintiff whole, and this dictum has been thought by some courts to imply that if the plaintiffs employ*128ment opportunities are inferior and reinstatement is infeasible, he should receive in addition to back pay a lump sum — called "front pay" to distinguish it from the remedy of back pay specified in the statute — representing the discounted present value of the difference between the earnings he would have received in his old employment and the earnings he can be expected to receive in his present and future, and by hypothesis inferior, employment. The logic of such an award, if the purpose of Title VII's remedial scheme is indeed to make the plaintiff whole, is undeniable.
McKnight, 908 F.2d at 116-17 (citations omitted).

 "The existence of damages must be proved; the amount of damages must be decided with all the certainty the case permits." Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Smith, 637 P.2d 1020, 1027 (Wyo. 1981) (approving award of front pay to indefinite term employee for employer's breach).

 See Repinski v. Clintonville Sav. & Loan Ass'n, 49 Wis. 2d 53, 58, 181 N.W.2d 351 (1970) ("An award of damages for breach of contract should compensate the injured party for losses necessarily flowing from the breach"); Wis JI—Civil 3710.

 As Professor Corbin has instructed:
The rules of law governing the recovery of damages for breach of contract are very flexible. Their application in the infinite number of situations that arise is beyond question variable and uncertain. Even more than in the case of other rules of law, they must be regarded merely as guides to the court, leaving much to the individ*130ual feeling of the court created by the special circumstances of the particular case.
5 Corbin on Contracts, § 1002 at 33 (1964).

 The Brockmeyer court recognized that the public policy wrongful discharge cause of action has the same goals as specific Wisconsin statutory causes of action for wrongful discharge, such as the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act, Wis. Stat. ch. 111, subch. II, the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act, Wis. Stat. § 111.06(1)(c)1, as well as Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and other federal statutes prohibiting wrongful discharges in violation of public policy. Because remedying and deterring violations of public policy are at the heart of these statutory causes of action, decisions in cases brought under these statutes may provide helpful analyses for determining the appropriate remedial regime in a common law public policy wrongful discharge action. Brockmeyer, 113 Wis. 2d at 567-68.
The Brockmeyer court stated, without citation, that "[t]he remedies established by the majority of Wisconsin wrongful discharge statutes are limited to reinstatement and backpay, contractual remedy concepts." Brockmeyer, 113 Wis. 2d at 575. Regardless of whether this statement, drawn from the briefs of the employer (at p. 30, 35) and amicus Wisconsin Association of Manufacturers and Commerce (at p. 17), was accurate in 1983, it is not today.

 See Byers v. LIRC, 208 Wis. 2d 388, 397-99, 561 N.W.2d 678, (1997) (discussing public policy purposes of the WFEA and remedies available); Watkins v. LIRC, 117 Wis. 2d 753, 764, 345 N.W.2d 482 (1984) (finding that the WFEA provides authority to fashion appropriate remedy).

 Federal statutes, such as Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., are similarly premised on remedying and deterring violations of public policy. Each has been interpreted as allowing courts to provide front pay as a substitute for reinstatement, in addition to back pay, where reinstatement is not feasible. Front pay is available under these statutes regardless of whether the employment was for an indefinite term.
The United States Supreme Court has stated that the purposes of Title VII are to remedy and deter discrimination in employment and to "make persons whole" for injuries due to unlawful employment discrimination. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 417-18 (1975).
The following are among the courts that have held that front pay is available in lieu of reinstatement under Title VII: Weaver v. Casa Gallardo, Inc., 922 F.2d 1515, 1528 (11th Cir. 1991); Edwards v. Occidental Chem. Corp., 892 F.2d 1442, 1449 (9th Cir. 1990); Shore v. Federal Express Corp., 777 F.2d 1159-60 (6th Cir. 1985); Goss v. Exxon Office Sys. Co., 747 F.2d 885, 889-91 (3d Cir. 1984); McKnight v. General Motors Corp., 768 F. Supp. 675, 680 (E.D. Wis. 1991), aff'd, 973 F.2d 1366 (7th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 915 (1993).
The seventh circuit has stated that "all of the circuits that have decided the issue.. .have held that front pay is an available remedy in appropriate cases brought under the ADEA." McNeil, 800 F.2d at 118.
The seventh circuit has held that front pay is available in lieu of reinstatement in retaliatory discharge actions brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. *133Avitia v. Metropolitan Club of Chicago, Inc., 49 F.3d 1219, 1231 (7th Cir. 1995).

 The Supreme Court of Arkansas has held that front pay is not available in public policy wrongful discharge actions. Sterling Drug, Inc. v. Oxford, 743 S.W.2d 380 (Ark. 1988).

 "Since much of the wrongful discharge litigation is relatively recent and has focused on the existence and breadth of the cause of action, the remedies available have not received extensive attention in reported decisions." Stephen P. Pepe & Scott H. Dunham, Avoiding and Defending Wrongful Discharge Claims, § 1.10 at p. 1-36 (5/93).
The following are among the courts that have resolved the question in fayor of the availability of front pay: Hummer v. Evans, 923 P.2d 981, 987-88 (Idaho 1996); Sasser, 839 S.W.2d 422, 433-34; Smith v. Smithway Motor Xpress, Inc., 464 N.W.2d 682, 687-88 (Iowa 1991); Hayes v. Trulock, 755 P.2d 830, 834 (Wash. Ct. App. 1988); Goins v. Ford Motor Co., 347 N.W.2d 184, 191 (Mich. Ct. App. 1983). See also Francis M. Dougherty, Damages Recoverable for Wrongful Discharge of At-Will Employee, 44 A.L.R. 4th 1131 § 5[c] and anno. supp. (collecting cases).

 In Stafford, 749 F. Supp. at 791—93, the court ultimately set front pay and ordered it paid on an "installment" basis whereby the court made biannual inquiry into the continued propriety of front pay, including the employee's employment situation and mitigation efforts.