Court Opinion

ID: 9655940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:26:37.224069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:24.233736
License: Public Domain

*579SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON,
¶ 40. CHIEF JUSTICE (dissenting). The crux of the present case is that Batteries Plus asserts it overpaid Clinton Mohr approximately $11,500, Mohr refused to agree to Batteries Plus deducting approximately $11,500 from his paychecks, and Mohr asserts that he was then wrongfully discharged. The court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the circuit court, based on the jury's finding that Mohr had not been overpaid and had indeed been underpaid, as well as wrongfully discharged. I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals.
¶ 41. As to the wrongful discharge, the court of appeals concluded as a matter of law that Mohr identified a fundamental and well-defined public policy that Batteries Plus had violated, namely, that an employer may not terminate employment when an employee refuses to agree to have disputed amounts deducted from his or her wages. I agree with the court of appeals.
¶ 42. Wisconsin Stat. § 103.455 expresses a fundamental and well-defined public policy that governs this case. The court has stated that Wis. Stat. § 103.455 proscribes economic coercion by an employer upon an employee and ensures that employees do not unfairly bear an employer's costs of operating a business.1 The public policy is to prohibit an employer from using self-*580help to settle a financial dispute with an employee without the consent of the employee or a court order.
¶ 43. Everyone agrees that Wis. Stat. § 103.455 does not cover the precise fact situation involved in this case. But that conclusion is not determinative of the present case. This court has repeatedly stated that "[t]he public policy of a statute is not limited to the circumstances described in the statute. The public policy of a statute may be invoked in contexts outside the precise reach of the statute."2 The majority opinion acknowledges this oft-stated rule but refuses to apply it here.
¶ 44. The majority opinion, contrary to the policy embodied in Wis. Stat. § 103.455, favors allowing an employer to use its economic "leverage" to recoup money from an employee to save the employer the trouble of suing the employee.3 The majority opinion thus allows an employer to deduct disputed amounts from an employee's paycheck and puts the onus on the employee to sue the employer to recover full compensation. Why is the majority opinion willing to shift the burden to employees to sue an employer to recover illegitimate wage deductions when the public policy embodied in Wis. Stat. § 103.455 is that the employer may not deduct disputed amounts from a paycheck?
¶ 45. Like the court of appeals, I would affirm the circuit court judgment based on the jury verdict in this case, which concluded that Batteries Plus's discharge *581of Clinton Mohr violated the public policy prohibiting an employer from extracting repayment of disputed expenses from an employee by means of the economic coercion of the paycheck.
¶ 46. For the reasons set forth, I dissent.
¶ 47. I am authorized to state that Justices WILLIAM A. BABLITCH and ANN WALSH BRADLEY join this opinion.

 Wandry v. Bull's Eye Credit Union, 129 Wis. 2d 37, 47, 384 N.W.2d 325 (1986) (Section 103.455 "articulates a fundamental and well-defined public policy proscribing economic coercion by an employer upon an employee to bear the burden of a work-related loss . .."); Erdman v. Jovoco, Inc., 181 Wis. 2d 736, 769, 512 N.W.2d 487 (1994) ("The objective of [§ 103.455] is violated either by an employer who requires an employe to be bound by deductions before any claimed loss or indebtedness arises or by an employer who requires an employe to agree to the deductions and release all claims as a condition for receiving compensation, *580without giving the employe an opportunity to challenge the deductions.").

 See Wandry, 129 Wis. 2d at 46-47; see also Strozinsky v. Sch. Dist. of Brown Deer, 2000 WI 97, ¶ 43, 237 Wis. 2d 19, 44, 614 N.W.2d 443 ("a discharge can violate the spirit, if not the exact letter, of a statutory provision").

See majority op. at ¶ 33.