Court Opinion

ID: 9584451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:48:32.950126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:53.865774
License: Public Domain

Neely J.

dissenting:

The reiteration of the syllabus point from Harless v. First National Bank in Fairmont, 162 W.Va. 116, 246 S.E.2d 270 (1978), prompts me to note once again that “the primary effect of the courts is not upon the cases which they decide, but rather upon the cases which they do not decide.” See Shanholtz v. Monongahela Power Co., _ W. Va. _, 270 S.E.2d 178, 183 (1980) (Neely C, C.J., concurring). By creating the cause of action in Harless, this Court has spawned a plethora of law suits of which the instant case is but one example. The plaintiff here has used Harless as the basis for a cause of action which on its face seems groundless. He claims that he was discharged by the coal company so that the coal company could prevent discovery of its false reporting of accidents to the Mine Enforcement Safety Administration. I submit that this is a nuisance lawsuit made possible only the improvident holding in Harless. A greater harm worked by *79Harless is in the unseen situations in which employers are reluctant to release unsatisfactory employees for fear of becoming liable in a suit brought under the menacing and nebulous penumbra of the Harless holding.
Not content merely to permit the Harless cause of action to continue its morbid, Grendel-like rampage through our economic system, the majority has given the monster even greater strength by extending the time in which the action may be brought. Hence employers who have determined to let an employee-at-will go must now face the specter of an increased period of liability in which the pall of nuisance litigation will hang over their enterprises. In a feat of alchemy worthy of Paracelsus’ envy, the majority has transformed an action based on retaliatory discharge into one based on fraud. Without resorting to cauldron or incantation I feel that if we must live with this cause of action it is limited by W. Va. Code, 55-2-12(c) [1959] which provides a one year period of limitations. Hence I would affirm the decision below.