Court Opinion

ID: 9753389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:12:26.958483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:35.746792
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING STATEMENT BY
FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.:
I very respectfully dissent and would affirm the trial court’s reading of 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 4957(a), The Crime Victims’ Employment Protection Act, because I believe the language of the Act is clear on its face.
The facts of this case are truly disturbing; and if, in fact, appellant is an employee at will, then I question whether appellant would have had a claim of wrongful discharge, separate from Section 4957(a), under the limited public policy exception to the employment at will doctrine.
In enacting The Crime Victims’ Employment Protection Act, the Legislature expressed, as a matter of public policy, that an employer may not interfere with an employee’s ability to appear in court as a victim or a witness. Clearly, that same public policy would extend to an employer’s interference with an employee’s reporting of a crime committed against him.
In Reuther v. Fowler & Williams, Inc., 255 Pa.Super. 28, 386 A.2d 119 (1978), this court recognized a cause of action for termination by the employer of an employee who was absent from work for serving jury duty. This court opined:
In general, there is no non-statutory cause of action for an employer’s termination of an at-will employment relationship. Geary v. United States Steel Corp., 456 Pa. 171, 319 A.2d 174 (1974). However, our Supreme Court has indi*1233cated that where a clear mandate of public policy is violated by the termination, the employer’s right to discharge may be circumscribed:
It may be granted that there are areas of an employee’s life in which his employer has no legitimate interest. An intrusion into one of these areas by virtue of the employer’s power of discharge might plausibly give rise to a cause of action, particularly where some recognized facet of public policy is threatened. The notion that substantive due process elevates an employer’s privilege of hiring and discharging his employees to an absolute constitutional right has long since been discredited.
Id. at 184, 319 A.2d at 180 (emphasis added; footnote omitted).
Id. at 120.
Therefore, although I cannot fit the facts of this case into a violation of 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 4957(a), I do believe appellant had a cause of action for wrongful discharge pursuant to the public policy exception discussed above.