Court Opinion

ID: 9795739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:37:16.117764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:35:59.910093
License: Public Domain

Rose, J.,
with whom Maupin, C. J., and Leavitt, L, agree,
concurring:
In Bigelow v. Bullard,1 we recognized that in some cases racial discrimination runs counter to Nevada’s public policy, and we provided an extremely limited remedy for those who suffer such employment discrimination. Our Bigelow decision has been widely and rightfully criticized, most recently by Nevada’s very own Boyd School of Law.2
This court now has the opportunity to correct this error and provide a meaningful remedy for those proven to be the victims of racial discrimination. However, the majority chooses to defer to the Legislature and let Bigelow stand without modification. We should not let pass the opportunity to overrule Bigelow.
A fundamental value of our nation is that racial discrimination *298is wrong. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids enactments that “deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws.” Article 4, Section 21, of our own constitution echoes that principle, requiring that all laws be “general and of uniform operation throughout the State.” A multitude of federal and state statutes prohibit racial discrimination, and most provide meaningful remedies to those who suffer such discrimination. But racial discrimination in employment is perhaps the worst form because it often prevents a person from earning a decent livelihood and destroys the chance to improve one’s lot in life.
Nevada recognizes that discrimination in employment is wrong, but provides a remedy for this discrimination only if an employer has fifteen or more employees. Those employees’ who work for a business with less than fifteen employees have no remedy for racial discrimination. The economic concerns the Legislature seeks to address by distinguishing small and large businesses are negligible and do not amount to the “rational basis” required to justify creating the two classes.3 Thus, the distinction clearly violates the equal protection clauses of our federal and state constitutions.4 To rule otherwise would permit the Legislature to declare racial discrimination illegal, but arbitrarily provide a remedy to some, but not to all, employees who are victims of this insidious practice. This, we should not do.
My proposal to the majority would be to take the obvious step and declare racial discrimination in employment against our public policy. We have declared that forcing an employee to work in an unsafe workplace5 and firing an employee in retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim are against our public policy.6 Surely, racial discrimination in employment is on an equal footing with these other declared violations of public policy.
*299Once recognizing that racial discrimination in employment is against Nevada’s public policy, I would reject the narrow Bigelow remedy and permit all those suffering racial discrimination in employment the right to file suit if legislation does not otherwise provide them an adequate remedy.7 This would send a clear and unmistakable message throughout Nevada that racial discrimination, in all its ugly forms, is against Nevada’s public policy and that an adequate remedy will be provided for all our citizens who suffer this discrimination in the workplace.
Even after overruling Bigelow, I would nevertheless conclude that Chavez brought forth insufficient facts to establish racial discrimination. Accepting his facts as true, we have only Chavez’s statements that during the course of his employment the general manager made several offensive remarks regarding Hispanic people. This is not sufficient to establish wrongful termination because of racial discrimination, and we have previously said that uncorroborated allegations of an employer’s verbal statements are insufficient to overcome the presumption of at-will employment.8
Accordingly, I concur in the result reached by the majority, but certainly do not agree with the reasoning used to reach this result.

 111 Nev. 1178, 901 P.2d 630 (1995).

 J. Wade Kelson, Note, Public Policy and Wrongful Discharge: The Continuing Tragedy of Bigelow v. Bullard, 1 Nev. L.J. 249, 273 (2001) (“The [Bigelow] result silences employees’ voices, empowers unreasonably the employer, and breaks down the safeguard against abuse of the at-will employment doctrine.”).

 See State Farm v. All Electric, Inc., 99 Nev. 222, 225, 660 P.2d 995, 997 (1983) (“Legislative classifications must apply uniformly to all who are similarly situated, and the distinctions which separate those who are included within a classification from those who are not must be reasonable, not arbitrary.”), overruled on other grounds by Wise v. Bechtel Corp., 104 Nev. 750, 753-54, 766 P.2d 1317, 1319 (1988).

 See id. (holding that a statute of repose providing immunity after six-year period for architects and contractors, while denying such immunity to owners and material suppliers, was unconstitutional as violative of equal protection because no rational basis supported treating the classes differently); Laakonen v. District Court, 91 Nev. 506, 538 P.2d 574 (1975) (holding that a statute barring an automobile guest passenger from any recovery for injury attributable to negligent driving by his host violated the equal protection clauses of the federal and state constitutions).

 D'Angelo v. Gardner, 107 Nev. 704, 719, 819 P.2d 206, 216 (1991).

 Hansen v. Harrah’s, 100 Nev. 60, 64, 675 P.2d 394, 397 (1984).

 See Sands Regent v. Valgardson, 105 Nev. 436, 440, 111 P.2d 898, 900 (1989) (refusing to recognize a tortious discharge cause of action based on age discrimination where the employee could recover under federal and state age discrimination statutes).

 Yeager v. Harrah’s Club, Inc., 111 Nev. 830, 836, 897 P.2d 1093, 1096 (1995).