Court Opinion

ID: 9844274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:59:57.975881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:31.424779
License: Public Domain

*328MILLER, Justice,
dissenting:
The difficulty I have with the majority opinion is that at and prior to the time the plaintiffs were terminated from their at will employment, there was no established public policy that prohibited an employer from discharging an at will employee who refused to take a lie detector or polygraph test. The majority admits, as it must, that W.Va.Code, 21-5-5b (1983), did not become effective until July of 1983 {see 325 S.E.2d at 113-14 n. 6), which was approximately nine months after the plaintiffs’ termination. This statute restricts an employer’s right to utilize a lie detector on employees or to discharge them for refusing to take such a test.
Initially one might wonder why the legislature would have enacted W.Va.Code, 21-5-5b (1983), if there was an existing public policy against such practice. The obvious answer is that no such policy existed.
In Harless v. First National Bank in Fairmont, 162 W.Va. 116, 246 S.E.2d 270 (1978), we followed law from other jurisdictions and gave protection to at will employees if their discharge “contravene[d] some substantial public policy principle.” Syllabus, in part, Harless.1 The case involved a bank employee who was discharged when he endeavored to have his superiors comply with State and federal consumer credit and protection laws, applicable to the bank’s customers. After citing a number of cases from other jurisdictions, we said in Harless:
“We have no hesitation in stating that the Legislature intended to establish a clear and unequivocal public policy that consumers of credit covered by the Act were to be given protection. Such manifest public policy should not be frustrated by a holding that an employee of a lending institution covered by the Act, who seeks to ensure that compliance is being made with the Act, can be discharged without being furnished a cause of action for such discharge.” 162 W.Va. at 125-26, 246 S.E.2d at 276.
We did not have occasion in Harless to specifically state that the public policy standard must be in existence at the time the discharge occurs. However, it is obvious from the facts that it was in existence. Nor did we have occasion to state in Harless what the sources of public policy were, but again it is apparent from the opinion that a legislative enactment designed to benefit members of the public was deemed to express a public policy standard.
Courts elsewhere, in determining whether a public policy standard has been violated, have been unanimous in the view that the policy has to be preexisting and emanate from constitutional, statutory or regulatory provisions or prior judicial decisions. Parnar v. Americana Hotels, Inc., 65 Hawaii 370, 652 P.2d 625 (1982); Adler v. American Standard Corp., 291 Md. 31, 432 A.2d 464 (1981); Pierce v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., 84 N.J. 58, 417 A.2d 505, 12 A.L.R.4th 520 (1980); Geary v. United States Steel Corp., 456 Pa. 171, 319 A.2d 174 (1974). One of the most cogent statements is found in Parnar, 65 Hawaii at 380, 652 P.2d at 631:
“In determining whether a clear mandate of public policy is violated, courts should inquire whether the employer’s conduct contravenes the letter or purpose of a constitutional, statutory, or regulatory provision or scheme. Prior judicial decisions may also establish the relevant public policy. However, courts should proceed cautiously if called upon to declare public policy absent some prior legislative or judicial expression on the subject.”
The majority does not cite a single case where a court has permitted an at will employee to recover on a polygraph discharge in the absence of a statute forbidding such discharge. Perks v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 611 F.2d 1363 (3d Cir. 1979), cited by the majority, was based on a *329specific Pennsylvania statute, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 7321(a) (1973), which made it a misdemeanor to require an employee to take a polygraph test. In the following cases, the courts have rejected suits for polygraph discharges, where there was no statutory prohibition on polygraph tests. Green v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 446 So.2d 16 (Ala.1984); Larsen v. Motor Supply Co., 117 Ariz. 507, 573 P.2d 907 (1977).
In an attempt to circumvent the lack of any established public policy regarding discharges of at will employees for refusing to take polygraph tests, the majority relies on several cases where we have recognized tort actions based on an invasion of the right of privacy. However, these cases cannot support the result reached in this case as there was no invasion of the employee’s privacy. A brief analysis of the cases relied upon by the majority serves to dispel their usefulness in the present case.
Roach v. Harper, 143 W.Va. 869, 105 S.E.2d 564 (1958), was a tort claim for an invasion of privacy resulting from a landlord’s unauthorized installation of a listening device in his tenant’s apartment, which enabled him to eavesdrop on the tenant’s conversations. We held that a cause of action for an invasion of privacy existed. Sutherland v. Kroger Co., 144 W.Va. 673, 110 S.E.2d 716 (1959), involved a claim for false arrest, illegal search, and slander by a patron of a supermarket. She had been detained at the store and her bags that she had brought in from another store had been searched. Again, we recognized that a cause of action existed for these torts which were related to an invasion of privacy.
Finally, in Golden v. Board of Education of the County of Harrison, 169 W.Va. 63, 285 S.E.2d 665 (1981), we dealt with a teacher’s discharge and concluded only that there were insufficient facts to warrant her discharge based on her nolo contendere plea in a magistrate court for shoplifting. The case had nothing to do with any theory of an invasion of privacy.
I do not believe that the majority intends that in any case involving an at will employee discharge, a court may after the fact seize on some nebulous theory arising out of tort law and convert it to a substantial public policy to sustain the suit. Unfortunately, some may read this into the majority’s language and for this reason I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Neely joins with me in this dissent.

. The entire Syllabus of Harless states:
“The rule that an employer has an absolute right to discharge an at will employee must be tempered by the principle that where the employer’s motivation for the discharge is to contravene some substantial public policy principle, then the employer may be liable to the employee for damages occasioned by this discharge.”