Court Opinion

ID: 9565868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:29:19.682355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:35.495351
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, J.,
concurring in part; dissenting in part.
I concur in the decision on plaintiff’s claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and for breach of contract. I dissent from the decision on his claim for wrongful discharge.
Plaintiff alleges that he was employed by Kendall Ford; that, just before October 22, 1986, David, plaintiffs supervisor, “instructed plaintiff to pull down his pants and expose [himself] * * * to Dan David and others;” that plaintiff was on duty and was standing in an area that was open to public view; that he refused to do as instructed; that David instructed him twice more to pull down his pants, but he still refused; that, as the result of his failure “to do as instructed,” Kendall Ford terminated him; and that, as a result of his *481wrongful termination, he suffered mental pain and suffering and lost wages.1
The general rule in Oregon is that an employer may discharge an employee at will, in the absence of a contractual, statutory or constitutional requirement to the contrary. Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., 301 Or 117, 120, 719 P2d 854 (1986). There are two categories of exceptions to the general rule: when an employee is discharged for fulfilling an important societal obligation, like jury duty, Nees v. Hocks, 272 Or 210, 536 P2d 512 (1975), or refusing to defame a co-employee, Delaney v. Taco Time Int’l., 297 Or 10, 681 P2d 114 (1984); and when an employee is discharged for pursuing an employment related private right that is of important public interest. Holien v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 298 Or 76, 90, 689 P2d 1292 (1984).
Plaintiff asserts that, if he had complied with the request to pull down his pants and expose himself, he would have violated county ordinances that prohibit that and he would have been subject to criminal penalties.2 The criminal laws impose an important societal obligation not to commit unlawful acts of exposure. Laws that prohibit acts of exposure, other than those of young children, reflect attitudes, as do *482laws favoring jury duty or opposing defamation, that the community strongly holds. An employer should not be free to discharge an employee at will because the employee refuses the employer’s request to violate laws by exposing himself in public. I dissent, because I believe that plaintiff stated a claim for wrongful discharge and we should reverse the trial court’s dismissal of that claim under ORCP 21A(8).
To state a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, a plaintiff must show that the defendant intended to cause emotional distress and that its conduct did in fact cause that distress. Furthermore, the trier of fact must be able to find that the defendant’s conduct, if proven, constitutes an “extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct.” Lewis v. Oregon Beauty Supply Co., 302 Or 616, 626, 733 P2d 430 (1987); Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., supra, 301 Or at 122; Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, 292 Or 131, 137, 637 P2d 126 (1981). Plaintiff realleged the allegations of his claim for wrongful discharge and also alleged that defendants intentionally caused him severe emotional distress when they discharged him for refusing to comply with the instruction to pull down his pants and expose himself to public view and that “such conduct was outrageous, shocking to the conscience and beyond the bounds of tolerable behavior.”
The act of discharging an employee ordinarily will not constitute conduct outrageous enough to support a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. In Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., supra, 301 Or at 124, the court held that the plaintiff had not stated a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress when he alleged that he was fired because he had refused to break off a social relationship with a female co-employee. The court held that, as a matter of law, the manner in which the plaintiff was discharged, while concededly offensive, did not amount to an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of social toleration and, consequently, the plaintiff did not state a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
As part of its consideration of the manner of the plaintiffs discharge, the court considered the reason for that discharge — that the plaintiff refused to terminate, at his employer’s request, a relationship with a female co-employee. *483When it stated that the discharge, as a matter of law, was not conduct that was an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of social toleration, it determined, in effect, that a reasonable jury could not find that the reason for the plaintiffs termination was sufficiently outrageous. Here, on the other hand, plaintiff alleged facts from which, if proven, a reasonable jury could find that the reason for plaintiffs discharge was that he refused to obey his employer’s instruction to pull down his pants and expose himself to public view. On the basis of that finding, a reasonable jury could also find that defendants’ conduct in discharging him for that reason was sufficiently outrageous to be an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of social toleration. I concur that the trial court erred in dismissing plaintiffs claim under ORCP 2lA(8) for intentional infliction of emotional distress.3
Plaintiff also asserts that the court erred when, at the close of his case, it granted the motion of Kendall Ford (Ford) for a directed verdict on his claim for breach of contract. He asserts that the employee manual that Ford gave to him when he commenced employment was a part of his employment contract. It reads:
“Our dealership is a growing, progressive organization serving a public need. You are thus assured of steady employment as long as you are a productive employee. We expect each of our employees to be a maximum producer, always doing his part to accomplish our common business objectives.” (Emphasis supplied.)
*484Plaintiff argues that Ford could not terminate him as long as he was a productive employee, except for cause. He contends that the jury could have found that he was a productive employee and that Ford breached the contract when it terminated him. The court, however, interpreted the manual differently and concluded that Ford employed plaintiff at will, and it granted the motion for a directed verdict.
The employee manual was part of plaintiffs employment contract. Yartzoff v. Democrat-Herald Publishing Co., 281 Or 651, 576 P2d 356 (1978). Whether a contract is ambiguous is a matter of law for the court. Timberline Equip. v. St. Paul Fire and Mar. Ins., 281 Or 639, 643, 576 P2d 1244 (1978). The manual is ambiguous, because it is capable of more than one sensible and reasonable interpretation, see Deerfield Commodities v. Nerco, Inc., 72 Or App 305, 317, 696 P2d 1096 (1985), that is, that Ford could discharge plaintiff either at will at any time or only for cause, after a probationary period. There is no provision in the manual that expressly states that, after a probationary period, Ford could discharge plaintiff only for cause. The manual, however, assures plaintiff of “steady employment as long as you are a productive employee.” It also provides for a “trial” or “probationary” period during which either party is free to decide that it “is not suited for the other.”4 The manual also declares that Ford will not “tolerate” certain kinds of employee conduct (alcohol use, drug use, violence and tardiness).5 Plaintiff introduced sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that Ford discharged him after his probationary period had passed and that he was a productive employee. The evidence was sufficient, therefore, *485to create questions of fact for the jury whether the parties intended that Ford could discharge plaintiff at will or only for cause and, if so, for what cause. The trial court erred in granting defendant’s motion for a directed verdict, and I concur in the reversal on the claim for breach of contract.

 On review of an order dismissing claims pursuant to Rule 21A(8), we accept the allegations pleaded in the complaint as true. Nicholson v. Blachly, 305 Or 578, 580, 753 P2d 955 (1988).

 Section 6.100 of the Lane County Code provides:
“(1) No person, eight years of age or older, shall on public or private property, expose his or her genitals to another person, except within the boundaries of private property with the permission of the owner of said property, that is screened so that the act cannot be viewed from any other property.
"* * * * *
“(4) Violation of LC 6.100(1) above is punishable upon conviction by a fine of not more than $1000 and by imprisonment in the County jail of not more than 30 days, or by both.”
Plaintiff also cites Section 4.755 of the Eugene City Code. That section, however, does not contain the language that plaintiff quotes. We assume that he meant to cite Section 4.760, which provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person eight years of age or older to expose his or her genitalia while in a public place or place visible from a public place, if the public place is open or available to persons of the opposite sex.”
Section 4.995 of the Eugene City Code provides that a violation of the above section is punishable by a fine of not more than $500 or confinement in jail not to exceed 100 days, or by both.

 Defendants argue that, even if the court erred when it dismissed plaintiffs claims for wrongful discharge and for intentional infliction of emotional distress, its errors were harmless. Defendants refer to plaintiffs testimony on cross-examination at trial on the breach of contract claim in which, according to defendants, plaintiff admitted that the incident in which his employer asked him to expose himself was a form of “horseplay” in which he refused to participate. Defendants assert that, even if they fired him for his refusal to participate in “horseplay,” that firing would not, as a matter of law, support plaintiffs claim for wrongful discharge or for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Defendants rely on Pio v. Kelly, 275 Or 585, 592, 552 P2d 1301 (1976), which held, on de novo review, that the trial court’s ruling that sustained the plaintiffs demurrer to the defendant’s affirmative defense was not reversible error, because the undisputed facts in the record established that, as a matter of law, the defendant could not have prevailed on the defense it alleged. Unlike in Pio, our review here is not de novo. Moreover, we cannot say, as a matter of law, on the basis of the evidence on the breach of contract claim, that plaintiff could not have offered evidence sufficient to present a jury question on his tort claims, regardless of the label of “horseplay” that any of the parties gave to the events. Pio therefore, is not authority for the proposition that the court’s errors in dismissing plaintiffs tort claims were harmless. They were not.

 A manual section entitled “Trial Period” provides:
“During the probationary period of your employment, both Kendall Ford and you are on trial. You will be given every opportunity to prove your ability. If you should be found unsuited for a particular job, every effort will be made to re-assign you to work for which you are suited, provided a vacancy exists. If you or the company decides during this period that either is not suited for the other, it is understood we may part as good friends.”

 The manual states that “[absenteeism cannot be tolerated”; that “[p]romptness is a basic requirement;” and that the “[u]se of violence will not be tolerated, nor will the use of alcoholic beverages or drugs during working hours or on our premises at any time.” The manual also states in a section on vacations and vacation pay that
“should an employee terminate by his own choice or be discharged with cause, vacation privileges and vacation pay will be automatically forfeited by the employee.” (Emphasis supplied.)