Court Opinion

ID: 9765569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:07:22.39104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:11.553757
License: Public Domain

STEADMAN, Associate Judge,
with whom KING, Associate Judge, joins, dissenting:
Prior to today, the law in this jurisdiction relating to the termination of employment of at-will employees was clear and certain. An employer could discharge an at-will employee at any time for any reason or for no reason at all, so long as the reason was not the employee’s refusal to violate the law, Adams v. George W. Cochran & Co., 597 A.2d 28, 30-33 (D.C.1991), or some other statutorily proscribed reason such as attending jury service, D.C.Code § 11-1913 (1995), seeking workers compensation, D.C.Code § 36-342 (1997), or on account of the employee’s race, sex or other protected status, D.C.Code § 1-2512 (1992).
I do not believe that our jurisprudence is well served by the en banc court acknowledging the existence of an area of further potential limitations resting on the ill-defined rubric of public policy, whose imprecise contours will be ruled on in the future by numerous and disparate trial courts and appellate panels. Such uncertainty can only plague the countless numbers of employers, employees, and their attorneys seeking to assess the precise legal status of the at-will-employment relationship. Rather, I would follow the approach of the New York Court of Appeals and require those advocating such expansion to address their efforts to the body that is, in my view, manifestly better positioned to make such determinations. See Murphy v. American Home Prod. Corp., 58 N.Y.2d 293, 461 N.Y.S.2d 232, 235, 448 N.E.2d 86, 89 *197(1983) (refusing to recognize tort of wrongful discharge of at-will employee and noting that “perception and declaration of relevant public policy ... are best and more appropriately explored and resolved by the legislative branch of our government”); Wieder v. Skala, 80 N.Y.2d 628, 593 N.Y.S.2d 752, 757, 609 N.E.2d 105, 110 (1992) (noting that “we have consistently held that [such a] significant alteration of employment relationships ... is best left to the legislature”).1
I can see at least three principal advantages to requiring that public policy exceptions to the at-will-employment doctrine be fashioned exclusively by the legislature. First, the legislature is the proper organ of government to make and define the scope of public policy. As a democratically elected body it is uniquely beholden to the concerns of the employers and employees of the District in a way we are not, and it has the power to hold hearings and conduct inquiry into a broad range of collateral issues and competing concerns that we do not. This is particularly the ease where what is at issue is not a refusal by the courts to enforce some socially unacceptable contractual provision, see RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 178 (1981), but rather the creation of a hitherto nonexistent basis for an affirmative cause of action in tort.
Second, of equal if not greater importance, public policy exceptions fashioned by the legislature have the benefit of providing clear notice to employers and employees prior to the accrual of a cause of action. The parties know where they stand and what they can and cannot do because the duty of employers is written into the law. In contrast, public policy exceptions formulated by courts are derived and applied post hoc, and provide no clear guidance to employers considering a possibly unlawful discharge. As it has been noted, “jurists to this day have been unable to fashion a truly workable definition of public policy,” Maryland-Nat’l Capital Park and Planning Comm’n v. Washington Nat’l Arena, 282 Md. 588, 386 A.2d 1216, 1228 (1978).
Third, the nature and extent of the remedy provided by legislatively enacted public policy exceptions can be tailored to fit the harm in accordance with existing statutes in a way we cannot. Our legislative body knows full well how to circumscribe with precision the discharge of at-will employees. For example, the Council has determined that where an employee has been discharged for seeking workers compensation benefits, an administrative claim for reinstatement and back pay is the appropriate remedy, Nolting v. National Capital Group, Inc., 621 A.2d 1387, 1388 (D.C.1993); while where an employee has been discharged for attending jury duty, a judicial cause of action for reinstatement, back pay, compensatory damages and attorney’s fees is the appropriate remedy, D.C.Code § ll-1913(c) (1995); and where an employee has been discharged for a discriminatory purpose, the employee’s choice of either an administrative claim for reinstatement, back pay, compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and injunctive relief or a judicial cause of action for reinstatement, back pay, compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and punitive damages is the appropriate remedy, Arthur Young & Co. v. Sutherland, 631 A.2d 354, 370-72 (D.C.1993); D.C.Code § 1-2553(a) (1992).
Judge Terry has made an heroic effort to appropriately cabin the role of the courts in creating further public policy limitations to the employment-at-will doctrine. Nonetheless, for the foregoing reasons, I must register my dissent.2

. See also Salter v. Alfa Ins. Co., 561 So.2d 1050, 1052 (Ala. 1990) (rejecting public policy exception to employment-at-will doctrine because ”[s]uch creations are best left to the legislature”); Gil v. Metal Serv. Corp., 412 So.2d 706, 708 (La.Ct.App.1982) (same).

. If my position were adopted and some unforeseen circumstance should arise involving manifest injustice and a gross affront to public policy, the en banc court would always be available to reexamine the law. However, today's disposition leaves such determinations open to future divisions of this court; if put to a choice between *198the standard to determine future public policy exceptions contained in part 1(B) of Judge Terry’s opinion and those of the other concurring opinions, I and Judge King would vote for the former. Therefore, in our judgment, the standard set forth by Judge Terry, which is endorsed by the four judges approving it and which is acquiesced in by Judge King and myself, can be said to be the effective holding of the en banc court on that issue.