Court Opinion

ID: 9486732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:58:02.73368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:54.014529
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In my view, Wallace v. Dunn Const. Co., 968 F.2d 1174 (11th Cir.1992) has the better of the argument on the issue of after-acquired evidence. The purpose of the relevant provisions of ERISA and the Missouri Human rights Act is to deter discriminatory acts and compensate those who have suffered from them. I respectfully suggest that the court errs in concluding that if defendant can show that it would never have hired Mr. Welch but for his misrepresentation, then Mr. Welch will be in no worse position than he would have been but for the alleged illegal act. The crucial points are that the defendant did hire him and did not know of the facts that might have led to Mr. Welch’s discharge until it discovered them because suit was filed against it. The defendant might never have learned of those facts, or it might have learned of them fortuitously at some later time. Until it did so, those facts could hardly provide an excuse for termination, since they could not have provided any part of the defendant’s motive. If Mr. Welch is not compensated for losses suffered between the time he was illegally fired and the time he would have been fired on account of the discovery of relevant facts, he is not in the same position he would have been in but for a wrong committed against him, and the purpose of the protective legislation is entirely lost.
Nor can I subscribe to the court’s conclusion that my view of the matter would allow an employee to “benefit from his or her misrepresentation.” Fraudulent activity, of course, gives rise to civil remedies for damages and rescission, and, in proper cases, even for criminal prosecution. For the sake of argument, let us assume that Mr. Welch was a tortfeasor: That fact could not possibly excuse the commission of a tort against him. I doubt that the court would allow the defendant, for instance, to justify a battery on Mr. Welch on the ground that he would not have been available for battering but for his misrepresentations. I cannot see how this case stands on a different footing. The plaintiff does not seek to benefit from his misrepresentation, if any. He seeks simply to have the law applied to him in an even-handed way. Under general tort principles, even a trespasser is entitled to the benefit of the rule that the offended landowner may not intentionally injure him.
In short, this case seems to me to involve a moral hazard similar to the one that T.S. Eliot had in mind when he wrote: “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” I think that the objects of deterrence and compensation both require us to examine a defendant’s mind for what it contained, not what it might have contained, to determine whether he has *1407committed a wrong. I therefore respectfully dissent.