Court Opinion

ID: 9861875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:52:08.842995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:36.457105
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE SEIDENFELD, specially concurring: Although I agree with the result reached in the court’s opinion, I write separately because of my disagreements with some of its broad conclusions. The majority seems to state that a discharged employee always has an adequate remedy at law if money damages is the only relief sought. However, there may be situations where due to the circumstances of the discharge the employee cannot find other employment and would suffer severe deprivation if preliminary injunctive relief were not available. In Sampson v. Murray (1974), 415 U.S. 61,92 n. 68,39 L. Ed. 2d 166,187 n. 68, 94 S. Ct. 937,953 n. 68, the Supreme Court held open the possibility that in “extraordinary cases” irreparable injury might be found in discharge cases so as to warrant preliminary relief. In Hoffman v. Wilkins (1971), 132 Ill. App. 2d 810, the court held that injury to reputation and loss of income occasioned by termination constituted irreparable injury and affirmed a preliminary injunction ordering reinstatement with back pay. Even though Hoffman was a public employment case, the question of adequacy of the legal remedy and existence of irreparable injury should not be answered differently in the private employment context where the discharged employee has a clear right to be protected. The majority also implies that private employees never have a right to reinstatement except where antidiscrimination or other statutes impose duties on the employer. I would not foreclose the possibility that in appropriate circumstances an employee discharged in breach of an employment contract could be reinstated pending final determination on the merits. The common law rule that courts of equity will not enforce personal services contracts has encountered so many exceptions (public employment; discriminatory discharges based on race, sex, color, creed, or handicap; collective bargaining agreements), that to some extent the exceptions have swallowed the rule. The remedy of reinstatement must be granted with caution, but should not be barred solely because the underlying right is contractual rather than statutory. In Kelsay v. Motorola, Inc. (1978), 74 Ill. 2d 172, the supreme court recognized the tort of retaliatory discharge. The court was not faced with the question of whether the discharged employee could be reinstated pending the outcome of the litigation. In my opinion, the availability of that remedy in similar situations should not be automatically denied. Because plaintiff has not stated a cause of action and due to the countervailing interest of defendant in the circumstances of this case, I concur in the result.