Court Opinion

ID: 9575613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:15:23.725663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:38.591159
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.

Tempus fugit.

The elapse of time since the pro and con opinions of this Court were issued in Clement v. Farmers Ins. Exchange1 is just six months short of ten years. The Court was divided three-to-two against Clement, with Chief Justice Shepard writing for the majority, joined by Justices Bakes and Johnson. Justice Huntley wrote the lead dissenting opinion in which, over thirteen columns of printed pages, he carefully documented the salient errors observed in the majority opinion and his conviction that there is no difference between employees at will and independent contractors where a bad faith termination is involved. “Therefore the limited protection afforded by law applies equally to both. Anderson v. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. of Idaho, 112 Idaho 461, 468, 732 P.2d 699, 706 (1987).” Clement, 115 Idaho at 306, 766 P.2d at 776.
Justice Huntley’s efforts at stemming the majority’s tide were not an impulsive thought, but in reality a veritable treatise. Therein he cited to and laid out in full the provisions of I.C. § 72-1302, Declaration of State Public Policy. 115 Idaho at 307, 766 P.2d at 777. Following that excerpt he quoted from this Court’s earlier statement in Custom Meat Packing Co. v. Martin, 85 Idaho 374, 384, 379 P.2d 664, 670 (1963), “that the policy of the Employment Security Law is to encourage the employer and employee to adjust their differences and thus avoid interrupting the employment.”
Justice Huntley respected the special concurring opinion of Justice Johnson, as to which he observed:
*657The special concurring opinion of Justice Johnson correctly notes that we are not dealing with an employment agreement, but rather are dealing with an independent contractor agreement. No one has contended to the contrary and the careful reader will note that several of the authorities I have above analyzed make reference to both employees and/or agents.
I think it is a sad day for ‘justice’ when this Court, having before it a case of first impression, adopts the following rule of law:
There is no cause of action in Idaho for an intentional, willful, bad faith termination of an agency relationship.
Most other wrongful, willful and bad faith violations of relationships between individuals or entities in the United States of America are actionable. The majority articulates no plausible reason for an exception when the tort feasor happens to be the principle of an ‘at will’ agency contract.
Clement, 115 Idaho at 309, 766 P.2d at 779. Encouraged by the words of Justices Huntley and Johnson, this justice, too, found time to add views supporting what they had submitted, but of lesser import, notable only for suggesting the applicability of the Doctrine of Reasonable Expectations, created by Justice Shepard in Corgatelli v. Globe Life Ins. Co., 96 Idaho 616, 619, 533 P.2d 737, 740 (1975).
Unfortunately, as the readers learn on perusing the sequel to Clement, the carefully chosen words of Justice Huntley may see another ten years pass by before an opinion is authored which embraces the views which he so painstakingly advanced in the effort to illustrate that there is no genuinely sound basis for differentiating between an employee and an “independent contractor” for the purpose of disqualifying the latter from receiving that which is due them. Many are working people, both men and women, who in finding and accepting work are escalated to the status of “independent contractors,” and thus exposed to summary discharge sans just compensation or fundamental fairness.

. Clement v. Farmers Ins. Exchange, 115 Idaho 298, 766 P.2d 768 (1988).