Court Opinion

ID: 9765566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:07:22.373832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:11.525322
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
with whom Associate Judge FERREN and Senior Judge MACK join, and with whom Associate Judge REID joins as to Parts II, III and IV, concurring:
Linda Carl claims that Children’s Hospital discharged her because she had testified before the Council of the District of Columbia in opposition to tort reform legislation and because she had appeared as an expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases. The Hospital moved the court to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. In support of its motion, the Hospital argued that Ms. Carl was an “at-will” employee, and that the Hospital had the right to discharge her for any reason or for no reason.
The trial judge granted the motion to dismiss. He concluded, apparently on the authority of Adams v. George W. Cochran & Co., 597 A.2d 28, 32 (D.C.1991), that in the absence of an allegation that the plaintiff was discharged for refusal to perform an unlawful act, the at-will doctrine barred Ms. Carl’s action for wrongful termination. A divided panel of this court affirmed. See Carl v. Children’s Hospital, 657 A.2d 286 (D.C.1995). We vacated the panel decision and granted Ms. Carl’s petition for rehearing en banc. Carl v. Children’s Hospital, 665 A.2d 650 (D.C.1995) (en banc).
I.
This is one of those cases in which the past is prologue. The at-will employment rule *175states in its unvarnished form that in the absence of a statutory proscription, an employer may discharge an at-will employee for any reason or for no reason. This rule “originated centuries ago as an adjunct to the law of master and servant in England.” Weiner v. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 57 N.Y.2d 458, 457 N.Y.S.2d 193, 195, 443 N.E.2d 441, 443 (1982) (footnote omitted). It was, however, soon deemed too rigorous in the land of its birth. “As far back as 1562, England placed statutory limits upon the power of an employer to terminate an employee unless there was ‘reasonable cause to do so.’ ” Id., 457 N.Y.S.2d at 196 n. 4, 443 N.E.2d at 443-44 n. 4 (citing 1 William Blaokstone, Commentaries 131 (1878)). Nineteenth century British courts applied the presumption that an employment relationship was for one year unless the parties had specified otherwise. See Berube v. Fashion Centre, Ltd., 771 P.2d 1033, 1040 (Utah 1989) (citing Note, Implied Contract Rights to Job Security, 26 Stan. L.Rev. 335, 340 (1974)).
When the doctrine was transplanted to the United States, however, it resumed its unconditional classical form. Weiner, supra, 457 N.Y.S.2d at 196 n. 4, 443 N.E.2d at 443-44 n. 4 (citations omitted). In this country, its genesis can be traced to an 1877 treatise by Horace G. Wood on the master-servant relationship,1 and the doctrine came to be known as Wood’s Rule. See 82 Am.Jur.2d Wrongful Discharge § 2, at 670-71 (1992 & Supp.1997); Berube, supra, 771 P.2d at 1040; see also Judge Ferren’s opinion, ante at 168 & n. 18. In Martin v. New York Life Ins. Co., 148 N.Y. 117, 119, 42 N.E. 416, 417 (1895), the New York Court of Appeals repudiated the common law’s “one year” presumption and “uncritically embraced the at-will rule as framed by Wood.” See Berube, supra, 771 P.2d at 1041.
There is now a broad consensus among courts and commentators that the authorities relied on by Wood did not support his thesis, and that the courts that adopted Wood’s Rule did so without adequate reflection. The Supreme Court of Utah has noted that
Wood proffered his rule without analysis and cited apparently inapposite authority on its behalf. Notwithstanding its dubious antecedents, the rule was adopted in many jurisdictions without careful and thorough examination.... Most courts offered no rationale or analysis for substituting the at-will doctrine for the common law presumption.
Berube, supra, 771 P.2d at 1040 (citations omitted); see also Weiner, supra, 457 N.Y.S.2d at 196 n. 5, 443 N.E.2d at 444 n. 5 (“as subsequent commentators have pointed out, [Wood] relied on no more than ‘scant authority of questionable value’ ”); Murphy v. American Home Products Corp., 58 N.Y.2d 293, 461 N.Y.S.2d 232, 239 & n. 1, 448 N.E.2d 86, 93 & n. 1 (1983), (Meyer, J., dissenting) (describing “bizarre” origins of Wood’s Rule and confused reasoning underlying its adoption).
Whatever its analytical shortcomings may have been, Wood’s Rule was to find “a receptive legal environment in laissez-faire nineteenth century America.” Weiner, supra, 457 N.Y.S.2d at 196, 443 N.E.2d at 444 (citation omitted). His treatise, after all, was about the law of master and servant, and the words master and servant meant what they said—masters were masters and servants were servants.2 “So strong indeed was the tum-of-the-century legal and socioeconomic philosophy that nurtured [the at-will rule] that for long Federal constitutional law deferred to it as well.” Weiner, supra, 457 N.Y.S.2d at 196, 443 N.E.2d at 444 (citations omitted).3 “By the arrival of the twentieth *176century, the at-will doctrine was well-established throughout the United States and served to reinforce turn-of-the century ideas concerning laissez-faire economics and freedom to contract.” Berube, supra, 771 P.2d at 1041 (citations omitted).
In this century, however, the at-will doctrine came under intensive attack from legal scholars and others, both for its doctrinal shortcomings and for its unfairness to employees. See Weiner, supra, 457 N.Y.S.2d at 196, 448 N.E.2d at 444. Indeed, it has been the “almost unanimous view of the commentators” that the traditional rule should be abandoned or modified, there being “little to recommend its continued application in instances in which the employer’s conduct undermines an important public policy.” Smith v. Atlas Off-Shore Boat Serv., Inc., 653 F.2d 1057, 1061 (5th Cir.1981) (footnote omitted). The view of the commentators has merit.
A principal justification traditionally tendered on behalf of the at-will doctrine rested on what now appears to be a transparently disingenuous concern for the rights of the employee (coupled with a misapplication of the doctrine of mutuality of obligation):
An employee is never presumed to engage his services permanently, thereby cutting himself off from all chances of improving his condition; indeed, in this land of opportunity it would be against public policy and the spirit of our institutions that any man should thus handicap himself; and the law will presume ... that he did not so intend. And if the contract of employment be not binding on the employee for the whole term of such employment, then it cannot be binding upon the employer, there would be lack of “mutuality.”
Pitcher v. United Oil & Gas Syndicate, Inc., 174 La. 66, 139 So. 760, 761 (1932) (emphasis added). The theory of mutuality on which this defense of the rule purports to be founded has been firmly rejected by courts and legal scholars alike, and few would defend it today. See Weiner, supra, 457 N.Y.S.2d at 196, 443 N.E.2d at 444; Berube, supra, 771 P.2d at 1045, 1A Corbin on Contracts, § 6.1, at 197 (1993); Blades, Employment At Will v. Individual Freedom: On Limiting the Abusive Exercise of Employer Power, 67 Colum. L. Rev. 1404, 1419-21 (1967) (hereinafter Blades).
The once firmly enshrined socioeconomic assumptions underlying the at-will doctrine also appear quite unrealistic today. “[W]hen viewed in the context of present-day economic reality and the joint, reasonable expectations of employers and their employees, the ‘freedom’ bestowed by the rule of law on the employee may indeed be fictional.” Cleary v. American Airlines, 111 Cal.App.3d 443, 168 Cal.Rptr. 722, 725 (1980). “The industrial revolution [has] made an anachronism of the absolute right of discharge by destroying the classical ideal of complete freedom of contract upon which it is based.” Blades, supra, 67 Colum.L.Rev. at 1418 (footnote omitted). “The system of ‘free’ contract described by nineteenth century theory is now coming to be recognized as a world of fantasy, too orderly, too neatly contrived and too harmonious to correspond with reality.” John P. Dawson, Economic Duress and the Fair Exchange in French and German Law, 11 Tul. L. Rev. 345 (1937). As the court stated in Smith, supra,
[t]he situation of the employer differs drastically from that of the employee. There is nothing more than the appeal of symmetry and a harkening back to hollow notions of mutuality to uphold any suggestion that the rights of employers must correspond to the rights of employees.
653 F.2d at 1061 n. 7 (quoting Blades, supra, 67 Colum. L. Rev. at 1426).
These and other authorities demonstrate that the foundations upon which Wood’s inflexible version of the at-will doctrine is supposed to rest have been substantially undermined or eclipsed. Cessanti ratione, cessat ipsa lex.4 “The days when a servant was *177practically the slave of his master have long since passed.” Greene v. Hawaiian Dredging Co., 26 Cal.2d 245, 157 P.2d 367, 370 (1945). A rule born of a bygone era and based on assumptions which few would indulge today should not be retained if its time has come and gone.
To paraphrase Mr. Justice Holmes, “the law embodies beliefs that have triumphed in the battle of ideas”; when the battle of ideas is over, “the time for law” has come.
Firestone Textile Co. Div. v. Meadows, 666 S.W.2d 730, 733 (Ky.1983) (quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes, Collected Legal Papers 294-95 (1920)).5
The analytical shortcomings of Wood’s Rule, and the obsoleteness of the economic and social theories underlying it, do not constitute the doctrine’s only vices. For the century or more that it has been in vogue, the at-will doctrine, flawed at birth, has often operated in a manner which many if not most reasonable people would view as unjust. See, e.g., Murphy, supra, 461 N.Y.S.2d at 239, 448 N.E.2d at 93 (Meyer, J., dissenting), (criticizing “[t]he harshness of a rule which permits an employer to discharge with impunity a 30-year employee one day before his pension vests”);6 Bender Ship Repair, Inc. v. Stevens, 379 So.2d 594 (Ala.1980) (at-will doctrine authorizes dismissal of employee for serving on grand jury);7 Guy v. Travenol Laboratories, Inc., 812 F.2d 911, 912-15 (4th Cir.1987) (employee may lawfully be terminated for refusal to falsify records which the employee was required to maintain pursuant to FDA regulations); Odell v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 201 F.2d 123, 127-28 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 345 U.S. 941, 73 S.Ct. 833, 97 L.Ed. 1367 (1953) (at-will doctrine permits corporate employer to discharge employees who testified before grand jury and at trial pursuant to subpoena, where testimony led to employer’s conviction on criminal charges); Buethe v. Britt Airlines, Inc., 787 F.2d 1194, 1196-97 (7th Cir.1986) (airline protected by at-will doctrine from liability for discharging co-pilot who declined to fly aircraft which did not meet federal standards of airworthiness; chief pilot had declared that a “co-pilot should keep his eyes open and his mouth shut”); see also 82 Am.Jur.2d Wrongful Discharge, §§ 34-49 (1992 & Supp.1997); Wanda Ellen Wakefield, Annotation, Liability for Discharging At-Will Employee for Refusing to Participate in, or for Disclosing, Unlawful or Unethical Acts of Employer or Co-Employees, 9 A.L.R.4th 329 (1981 & Supp. 1996).
Thirty years ago, Professor Lawrence E. Blades took a long hard look at the doctrine and found it wanting:
What is important is that such abuses, however common or uncommon, should not go unremedied. Whether for the sake of providing specific justice for the afflicted individual, deterring a practice which poses an increasingly serious threat to personal freedom generally, or instilling into employers a general consciousness of and respect for the individuality of the employee, the law should confront the problem.
Blades, supra, 67 Colum. L. Rev. at 1410. His point was well-taken then and remains so today.
‘You have stayed in this place too long, and there is no health to you. In the name of God, go!” So spoke Oliver Cromwell in *178dismissing the Rump Parliament in 1658. See Hercules & Co. v. Sharna Restaurant, Corp., 566 A.2d 31, 36 (D.C.1989) (citation omitted). Wood’s Rule in its original form has some of the attributes of the unfortunate body that Cromwell was addressing. The present case provides the full court with' an opportunity to determine whether, and to what extent, we should continue to adhere to a doctrine which, at least in its pristine form, has been abandoned by many courts, and which rests on assumptions that the scholarly community has long perceived to be profoundly flawed.
II.
Those of my colleagues who differ with the views expressed in this opinion do not necessarily disagree with the apparent near-eon-sensus of the commentators regarding the shortcomings of Wood’s Rule. Rather, they pose the fundamental question: who decides? Their basic answer to that question is: not the court! Judge Steadman would leave any revision of the at-will doctrine entirely to the legislature. Judge Terry contemplates a judicial role, but a markedly limited one. The judges favoring affirmance perceive judicial modifications of the rule as unseemly activism. For the reasons stated below, I must respectfully disagree with this assessment.
I begin by noting my agreement with the proposition that legislation enacted by our elected representatives, who are responsible for their actions to the voters, constitutes the principal foundation for the District’s public policy. It is inappropriate for judges to interpret the Constitution or a statute to coincide with or reflect the economic and social views of the judges who are doing the interpreting. Statutes enacted by our legislature should not be invalidated on the basis of what a judge reads into the “penumbra” of a constitutional provision.
But this is not a case in which Ms. Carl is asking us to overrule the Council or to intrude into the legislative domain. Wood’s Rule came into being by judicial flat, not by legislative enactment. It has never received the blessing or endorsement of our elected representatives. It is no more “activist” for this court to modify the doctrine than it was for the nineteenth century courts to promulgate it. Reappraisal of a judge-made rule in the interests of justice is well within the common law tradition.
“[T]he very term ‘common law5 means a system of law not formalized by legislative action, not solidified but capable of growth at the hands of judges.” Linkins v. Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Found., 87 U.S.App. D.C. 351, 354-55, 187 F.2d 357, 360-61 (1950) (Prettyman, J.) (emphasis added). “[T]he former common law should not be followed where changes- in conditions have made it obsolete. We have never hesitated to exercise the usual judicial function of revising and enlarging the common law.” Id. at 355, 187 F.2d at 361 (citation and footnote omitted); see also Nelson v. Nelson, 548 A.2d 109, 112 (D.C.1988). Like the Supreme Court of Kentucky, I
do not think the framers of our Constitution intended to shackle the hands of the judicial branch of government in its interpretation, modification or abolition of the great body of mutable common law to meet the demands of changing times.
City of Louisville v. Chapman, 413 S.W.2d 74, 77 (Ky.1967).
It is especially appropriate for the court to exercise its authority to modify the common law where, as I believe in this case, the doctrine sought to be revisited is rooted in an obsolete ideology and has evident analytical shortcomings. “It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that it was laid down in the time of Henry IV,” Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law 187 (1921), or, for that matter, in the days of President Rutherford Hayes. The following statement by the Supreme Court of Maine fits this case well:
Although adherence to the principle of stare decisis is generally a wise course of judicial action, it does not irreversibly require that we follow without deviation earlier pronouncements of law which are unsuited to modem experience and which no longer adequately serve the interests of justice.
Beaulieu v. Beaulieu, 265 A.2d 610, 613 (Me. 1970); see also Swetland v. Curtiss Airports *179Corp., 55 F.2d 201, 203 (6th Cir.1932) (noting “the traditional policy of the courts to adapt the law to the economic and social needs of the times”).8
In Williams v. Baker, 572 A.2d 1062 (D.C. 1990) (en banc), a case quite similar to the present one in respects here relevant, the plaintiff asked the court to abandon the traditional “impact rule,” which provided that there could be no recovery for negligently inflicted emotional distress in the absence of physical injury. Id. at 1064. One judge of this court argued that a common law rule which had been in effect for more than two centuries should not be judicially abrogated where “[njeither Congress nor any local government body has ever seen fit to change it.” Id. at 1073 (opinion of Reilly, J.). Notwithstanding the lack of any evidence that the legislature was dissatisfied with existing law, the en banc court overruled its well-entrenched prior jurisprudence by a vote of eight to one. The court noted that “[t]he vast majority of jurisdictions ... have abandoned or refused to adopt the impact rule,” id. at 1066, and cited a number of scholarly articles and commentaries in support of its decision. Id. at 1065-69.
The situation in the present case is somewhat analogous. By 1991, according to one compilation, forty-five states had made at least some modifications to Wood’s Rule, 82 Am.Jur.2d Wrongful Discharge § 8, at 676-77 (1992 & Supp.1997);9 see also Judge Mack’s opinion, post, at 186. Moreover, as I have noted, scholarly condemnation has apparently been almost universal. Smith, supra, 653 F.2d at 1061.
It is important to note what this ease is not about. I have previously expressed my disagreement with the notion that
where a statutory enactment authorizes a particular result only in situations A, B, and C, a court which is not satisfied with this arrangement can order the same result in situation D by “creative expansion” of the common law or by some similar doctrine.
Gallimore v. Washington, 666 A.2d 1200, 1215 (D.C.1995) (separate opinion of Schwelb, J.). I adhere to that position here; it is not the function of the court to upset a legislative compromise.
But as Judge Ferren has explained, ante at 170-172, the Council of the District of Columbia has not adopted legislation designed to define the permissible scope of the at-will rule or to declare that doctrine’s limits. Although the legislature has enacted specific provisions to deal with particular problems which have been brought to its attention,10 these statutes were plainly not designed to preempt the development of the common law of wrongful termination. Indeed, in 1994, in providing legislative protection from wrongful discharge for employees of certain contractors, the Council expressly provided:
This chapter shall not be construed to limit an employee’s right to bring a common law cause of action for wrongful termination.
D.C.Code § 36-1503(c) (1997); see also opinion of Ferren, J., ante, at 171.
It is fair to conclude, especially in light of this provision, that modification by this court of the at-will doctrine, in conformity with the conventional processes of the common law, would not constitute interference with legislative prerogatives. When the legislature criminalized threats to witnesses who testified before it, see D.C.Code § 1-224 (1992), it did not thereby create a statutory civil action for damages for employees in Ms. Carl’s circumstances. See, e.g., Fountain v. Kelly, 630 A.2d 684, 690 (D.C.1993) (“where a statute expressly provides a particular remedy, a *180court must be chary of reading others into it”) (citation omitted). It would be altogether unreasonable, on the other hand, to infer from Section 1-224 that the Council meant to foreclose a common law right of action for wrongful termination.
In the present context, as in others, the court should act prudently and with restraint. The doctrine of stare decisis plays “an important role in orderly adjudication,” and it also “serves the broader societal interests in even handed, consistent and predictable application of legal rules.” Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co., 448 U.S. 261, 272, 100 S.Ct. 2647, 2656, 65 L.Ed.2d 757 (1980) (plurality opinion) (footnote omitted). These are important considerations to which any responsible court will accord significant weight. But the restraint appropriate to this case is that commanded by respect for precedent. We should not hastily or improvidently east aside our own prior decisions, and we should ensure that the common law develops in an orderly manner, but that is all of the self-restraint that is required. I respectfully but firmly disagree with the view that in the present context, any but the slightest modification of a judge-made doctrine would usurp the authority of the legislative branch.
III.
As the court has today recognized,
there is nothing in the Adams opinion that bars this court—either a three-judge panel or the court en banc—from recognizing some other public policy exception when circumstances warrant recognition.
Indeed, eight of the ten judges of the en banc court have rejected the proposition that in the District of Columbia, Adams represents the only permissible variation from the at-will doctrine.
In his concurring opinion, however, Judge Terry states, inter alia, that “the recognition of any public policy exception to the at-will doctrine must be solidly based on a statute or regulation that reflects the public policy to be applied, or (if appropriate) on a constitutional provision concretely applicable to a defendant’s conduct.” ante at 163. It is with respect to this assertion that he and I part company. In my view, the quoted language is too restrictive, and its application would protect Wood’s Rule from judicious evolutionary change effected in conformity with the common law tradition.
The authority of a common law court to modify a judge-made rule, where that rule’s intellectual foundations have crumbled, is not limited in the way that Judge Terry suggests.11 In Williams v. Baker, for example, this court’s rejection of the long-entrenched “impact” rule was not “solidly based on a statute or regulation,” or on the Constitution. Indeed, there was no constitutional or statutory provision, nor any regulation, on which this change in the law could be grounded, and none was cited in the opinion of the court. Significantly,- the authorities on which the court did rely in Williams as justifying a major change in judge-made law were the decisions of other common law courts and the views of enlightened scholars and commentators. See Williams, supra, 572 A.2d at 1065-1069. There is no persuasive reason to reject in at-will doctrine cases the very kinds of sources which we invoked in Williams as grounds for relegating the impact rule to oblivion.
The origins of the more restrictive language reflected in some of our earlier opinions in this area12 may be, at least in part, semantic. Proposed judicial modifications of Wood’s Rule have consistently been characterized as “public policy” exceptions. See, e.g., Adams, supra, 597 A.2d at 32. Seizing on this nomenclature, some courts have assumed that, because “public policy” necessarily involves “policy,” and because legislatures (and not judges) are supposed to make “policy,” any exceptions to the at-will rule must be effectuated by the legislature and not by courts. Use of the phrase “public policy exception” presents the issue before us in a way that implies a threat of judicial intrusion *181upon a legislative domain. If we invoked Judge Prettyman’s language in Linkins, supra, and inquired whether “changes in conditions have made [Wood’s Rule] obsolete,” 87 U.S.App. D.C. at 355, 187 F.2d at 361, then the spectre of activism might perhaps recede in the reader’s mind. Here, as in so many situations, the phrasing of the question may have a good deal to do with the character of the answer.13
This is not to suggest that the recognition of exceptions to, or modification of, an existing judge-made rule lacks any connection with “policy.” Common sense tells us that the contrary is the case. In Williams v. Baker, we described as a “question of policy for the court” the determination whether the impact rule was to stay or go. 572 A.2d at 1072. We decided that question, however, because to do so was well within the judicial function. If, as Judge Prettyman has written, the common law is “not solidified but capable of growth and development at the hands of judges,” Linkins, supra, 87 U.S.App. D.C. at 354-55, 187 F.2d at 360-61, then that “growth” must necessarily implicate the judges’ views of the “interests of justice,” Beaulieu, supra, 265 A.2d at 613, and thus of policy.
Because this is so, judges should exercise considerable restraint “lest they mistake their own predilections for public policy which deserves recognition at law.” Gantt v. Sentry Insurance, 1 Cal.4th 1083, 4 Cal. Rptr.2d 874, 881, 824 P.2d 680, 687 (1992) (citation omitted). But Wood’s Rule itself came into being because it reflected the “predilections” of Mr. Wood (and of the judges who adopted his doctrine) in favor of a lais-sez-faire form of capitalism in which the worker’s livelihood depended on the caprice *182of his or her employer. This court has the authority, under familiar common law principles, to alleviate the rigors of a doctrine based on the social and economic views enforced by judges of another time. We should exercise that authority wisely, but we are not bound to stay our hand simply because no statute or regulation has created the proposed exception at issue. Where such a proposed exception would promote or advance values protected by a statute or, as in this case, by the Constitution, see Part IV, infra, we should not hesitate to adopt it.
IV.
I now turn to the application of the foregoing principles to the case before us. We are called upon to decide whether the facts alleged in Ms. Carl’s complaint, the truth of which must be assumed for the purposes of the Hospital’s motion to dismiss, justify a departure from the at-will doctrine. In making this determination, we are free to consider relevant decisions by courts in other jurisdictions, scholarly commentaries, and any other appropriate common law source.
In formulating exceptions to the rigorous commands of Wood’s Rule as originally formulated, the courts have generally recognized three categories of protected employee conduct:
1.' exercising a constitutional or statutory right;
2. refusing to engage in illegal activity; and
3. reporting criminal conduct to supervisors or outside agencies.
Cf. 82 Am.Jur.2d Wrongful Discharge § 15, at 688 (1992).14 The present case involves only the first of these categories.15 Ms. Carl contends, in substance, that by discharging her for testifying before the Council and for appearing as an expert witness for plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases, Children’s Hospital has retaliated against her for exercising her right to free speech. Such retaliation, according to Ms. Carl, is contrary to the public interest because it chills the exercise of fundamental rights..
The First Amendment provides that “Congress may pass no law abridging ... freedom of speech.” “It is, of course, commonplace that the constitutional guarantee of free speech is a guarantee only against abridgment by government, federal or state.” Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507, 513, 96 S.Ct. 1029, 1033, 47 L.Ed.2d 196 (1976) (citation omitted). The Amendment does not apply to private conduct. Id. Ms. Carl has not alleged that Children’s Hospital is a governmental actor. If, as Judge Terry suggests, an exception to the at-will doctrine must have as its basis a provision “concretely applicable to the defendant’s conduct,” ante at 163, then Ms. Carl’s “free speech” argument must fail.
If, however, the court’s common law authority is not so restricted, and if the court is free, as I believe it must be, to recognize an exception that affirmatively promotes the values protected by the First Amendment, then the result must surely be different.
We have become a nation of employees. We are dependent upon others for our means of livelihood, and most of our people have become completely dependent upon wages. If they lose their jobs they lose every resource, except for the relief supplied by the various forms of social security. Such dependence of the mass of the people upon others for all of their income is something new in the world. For our generation, the substance of life is in another [person’s] hands.
F. Tannenbaum, A Philosophy of Labor 9 (1951) (emphasis "in original). Because of this • economic dependence on the part of employees, the at-will doctrine effectively “forces the non-union employee to rely on the whim of his employer for [the] preservation of his livelihood.” Blades, supra, 67 Colum.L.Rev. at 1405. This dependence “tends to make him a docile follower of his employer’s every wish,” id., and may inhibit him *183from speaking his mind freely if what he would like to say differs from that which the employer would like to hear.
The “central commitment of the First Amendment ... is that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open.” Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 136, 87 S.Ct. 339, 349, 17 L.Ed.2d 235 (1966) (citation omitted). “It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited market-place of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail....” Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 390, 89 S.Ct. 1794, 1806, 23 L.Ed.2d 371 (1969). “[W]hat is essential is not that everyone shall speak, but that everything worth saying shall be said.” Columbia Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. Democratic Nat’l Comm., 412 U.S. 94, 122, 93 S.Ct. 2080, 2096, 36 L.Ed.2d 772 (1973) (quoting Alexander Meiklejohn, Political Freedom 26 (1948)). If an employee like Ms. Carl places her livelihood in jeopardy by speaking out on an issue of public concern, then the “market-place of ideas” is not uninhibited in any realistic sense. The ultimate victory of the forces of truth, which is supposed to emerge from free and open debate, then becomes a far more iffy prospect.
For these very reasons, the Supreme Court has recognized that although the First Amendment plays no direct role in eases not involving governmental action, “statutory or common law may in some situations extend protection or provide redress against a private corporation or person who seeks to abridge the free expression of others.” Hudgens, supra, 424 U.S. at 513, 96 S.Ct. at 1033 (emphasis added). Indeed, the First Amendment “rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.” Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 20, 65 S.Ct. 1416, 1424-25, 89 L.Ed. 2013 (1945) (emphasis added). The public interest is thus disserved by “repression of [freedom of expression] by private interests.” Id. (footnote omitted).
These principles are profoundly relevant to at-will doctrine jurisprudence. In Novosel v. Nationwide Ins. Co., 721 F.2d 894 (3d Cir.1983), the plaintiff, a district claims manager for Nationwide, alleged that he was discharged for refusing to participate in Nationwide’s effort to lobby the Pennsylvania legislature in favor of proposed “no-fault” legislation, and for privately stating his opposition to the company’s political stand. The trial judge dismissed the complaint, but the Court of Appeals reversed. Applying Pennsylvania law, the appellate court concluded, inter alia, that “the protection of an employee’s freedom of political expression would appear to involve no less compelling a societal interest, than the fulfillment of jury service or the filing of a workers’ compensation claim.” Id. at 899. The court found it to be beyond doubt that “speech on public issues has always rested on the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values,” and that “the right to petition or not petition the legislature is incorporated within protected speech on public issues.” Id. & n. 7 (citations omitted). The court acknowledged that Nationwide was not a state actor, and that the plaintiff would have to rest his claim of wrongful termination on the common law rather than on the Constitution. Id. at 900. The court was of the opinion, however, that “an important public policy is in fact implicated wherever the power to hire and fire is utilized to dictate the terms of employee political activities,” id., and that “ft]he protection of important political freedoms ... goes well beyond the question whether the threat comes from state or private bodies.” Id. (emphasis added). The court therefore remanded the ease for trial.
In Bishop v. Federal Intermediate Credit Bank, 908 F.2d 658 (10th Cir.1990), the plaintiff, a bank employee, claimed that his employer (FICB) had discharged him in retaliation for testifying at a Congressional hearing.16 He contended that FICB’s action violated the First Amendment and Oklahoma public policy. The trial judge granted summary judgment on both claims. The Court of Appeals agreed with the trial judge that *184the First Amendment had not been violated, concluding that FICB “is not a government actor for purposes of establishing constitutional deprivations.” Id. at 663. The court held, however, that “truthful testimony at congressional hearings is an act consistent with a clear and compelling public policy that justifies a public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine.” Id. at 662 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The court recognized this exception even though Bishop’s claim was not rooted in any constitutional or statutory command.17
The present case is obviously quite similar to Novosel and Bishop. The courts in those cases held that the at-will doctrine ought not to be automatically followed where its application would chill the exercise of rights protected from governmental restraint by the First Amendment. These decisions make eminent sense, and we should follow them. “Our progressive capital ought not to be left behind.” Gray v. Citizens Bank, 602 A.2d 1096, 1099 (D.C.) (Schwelb, J., concurring), vacated, id. at 1102, opinion reinstated on denial of rehearing en banc, 609 A.2d 1143 (D.C.1992) (en banc).
V.
This does not end our inquiry. Ms. Carl’s right to express herself freely is not the only interest to be considered in this ease. The calculus must also embrace Children’s Hospital’s perspective. If an employee conducts herself in a manner which significantly impairs her employer’s interests, then her claim loses much of its force.
The decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Korb v. Raytheon Corp., 410 Mass. 581, 574 N.E.2d 370 (1991), is illustrative. Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, walked through the “revolving door” and became Vice President of Raytheon Corporation and a spokesman for his new employer in Washington, D.C. Ray-theon, a weapons manufacturer, was a major defense contractor. In remarks which were reported in the Washington Post, Korb criticized proposed increases in defense spending and, in the Supreme Judicial Court’s words, “publicly expressed views in direct conflict with the corporation’s economic interest.” Id. 574 N.E.2d at 371. Raytheon promptly discharged Korb, who in turn brought an action for wrongful termination. Korb contended that his dismissal abridged his right to freedom of expression, contravened the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, and violated that state’s public policy. In affirming the entry of summary judgment in Ray-theon’s favor, the court firmly rejected Korb’s contentions:
Korb characterizes the public policy at issue too broadly. His situation is not that of an employee who is fired for speaking out on issues in which his employer has no interest, financial or otherwise. To .the contrary, Korb was hired to be the corporation’s spokesperson, and he spoke against the interests of the corporation. The topic was one of acute concern to Raytheon. Regardless of whether Korb believed himself to be acting privately rather than as a Raytheon employee, and regardless of what Korb actually said, the public perception after the press conference was that a Raytheon lobbyist advocated a reduction in defense spending. Raytheon had a financial stake in not advocating that position. Therefore, it determined that Korb had lost his effectiveness as its spokesperson. There is no public policy prohibiting an employer from discharging an ineffective at-will employee. The fact that Korb’s job duties included public speaking does not alter this rule.
Id. 574 N.E.2d at 372 (footnote omitted).
The court’s opinion is well-reasoned, and I have no quarrel with it. It would make little *185sense to require an employer to retain in office, and doubtless pay a large salary to, a corporate Vice President whose highly publicized conduct has been contrary to the employer’s interests in relation to a matter of immediate and acute concern. The court suggested, however, that the result would have been different if Raytheon’s financial or other interest had not been implicated. That also makes good sense.
In the present case, Ms. Carl allegedly testified in opposition to tort reform and on behalf of medical malpractice plaintiffs.18 If Children’s Hospital can demonstrate that this ease is analogous to Korb, and that this type of exercise of First Amendment rights by a probationary non-management employee could significantly harm the Hospital’s financial interest, then this will constitute a formidable defense. It is certainly not obvious, however, that this case is more like Korb than like Novosel and Bishop. We should not conclude, on the basis of Ms. Carl’s complaint alone, that Children’s Hospital is entitled to judgment on the strength of Korb. Rather, we should remand the ease to the trial court for an appropriate factual inquiry.
In relation to any proceedings on remand, the court and jury should be required to
balance the interests of the employee, the employer, and the public. Employees have an interest in knowing they will not be discharged for exercising their legal rights. Employers have an interest in knowing they can run their businesses as they see fit as long as their conduct is consistent with public policy. The public has an interest in employment stability and in discouraging frivolous lawsuits by dissatisfied employees.
Pierce v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., 84 N.J. 58, 417 A.2d 505, 511 (1980). We add the obvious: the public also has an interest in the free expression of ideas on political and other issues.
In Novosel, the Court of Appeals remanded the case to the district court with directions to conduct a four-part inquiry:
1. Whether, because of the speech, the employer is prevented from efficiently carrying out its responsibilities;
2. Whether the speech impairs the employee’s ability to carry out [her] own responsibilities;
3. Whether the speech interferes with essential and close working relationships;
4. Whether the manner, time and place in which the speech occurs interferes with business operations.
721 F.2d at 901 (citation omitted). I would add to the first of these categories “or from pursuing its business interests.” With that qualification, I believe that Novosel provides a useful methodology for conducting the Pierce inquiry.
Some of my colleagues are of the opinion that these standards are too vague, and that the employer is entitled to know with precision when he may or may not discharge an employee. I do not agree. There is undoubtedly a measure of balancing which must be undertaken if the inquiry that I have set forth is followed. Nevertheless, the criteria in Pierce and Novosel are no more general than those in many other areas of the law. As Justice Holmes wrote for the Court in Nash v. United States, 229 U.S. 373, 33 S.Ct. 780, 57 L.Ed. 1232 (1913),
the law is full of instances where a man’s fate depends on his estimating rightly, that is, as the jury subsequently estimates it, some matter of degree. If his judgment is wrong, not only may he incur a fine or short imprisonment, as here; he may incur the penalty of death.
Id. at 377, 33 S.Ct. at 781. Here, the defendant is not faced with imprisonment or death, and Justice Holmes’ reasoning applies a for-tiori.
*186In those eases in which an employer has a persuasive business justification for discharging an employee, it is unlikely that he will be held liable for damages under the standard that I suggest. It is possible, of course, that in a close case, the employer will stay his hand, and will keep on an employee who has spoken out, even under circumstances in which the court might sustain a discharge if the controversy were to go to trial. That, however, is not too steep a price to pay for alleviating the harshness of an especially restrictive judge-made doctrine. Where Wood’s Rule is applied with rigor, the resulting injustices are palpable. Even if the adoption of the exception I propose were to result in the retention, from time to time,, of a legally dismissable employee, the world will not end on that account. Indeed, this result might, in the long run, promote the achievement of the free marketplace of ideas which differentiates our democracy from less enlightened forms of governance.
It should not be an inexorable principle of our law that he who pays the piper must always call the tune. The relatively modest departure from the at-will doctrine suggested in this opinion will not render the employer defenseless. It will, however, help to free the law from a judicially imposed albatross which has not served us well.

. See Horace G. Wood, Master and Servant (1877).

. May I not forbid my family to trade with anyone? May I not dismiss my domestic servant for dealing, or even visiting, when I forbid? And if my domestic, why not my farmhand, or my mechanic, or teamster?
Payne v. Western & Atlantic R.R., 81 Tenn. (13 Lea) 507, 518 (1884), overruled on other grounds, Hutton v. Watters, 132 Tenn. 527, 179 S.W. 134 (1915).

. The Supreme Court cases which effectively constitutionalized the at-will doctrine—Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161, 28 S.Ct. 277, 52 L.Ed. 436 (1908), and Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1, 35 S.Ct. 240, 59 L.Ed. 441 (1915)—have been sapped of their vitality by later decisions sustaining New Deal legislation restricting employers’ rights. See, e.g., NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 45-46, 57 S.Ct. 615, 628, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937). The Court eventually came to agree with Justice Holmes that *176"[t]he Fourteenth Amendment does- not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.” Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 75, 25 S.Ct. 539, 546, 49 L.Ed. 937 (1905) (dissenting opinion).

. When the reason for a rule of law ceases, then the rule of law likewise ceases (or, at least, ought to cease). Cf. Creighton v. Brown, 77 A.2d 559, 562 (D.C.Mun.1950) (citations omitted) (”[i]f the rule established by precedent ... finds its origin in reasons which no longer exist, and the courts *177have from time to time found it necessary to make exceptions thereto ... the courts should adapt their procedure to the age in which we live, and cease to follow a precedent for which they have always to apologize”).

.In Meadows, the court concluded that the “battle of ideas” over Wood’s Rule was over, and held that an employee who alleged that he had been dismissed for filing a worker’s compensation claim had the right to sue his employer for wrongful discharge, notwithstanding the absence of any statute proscribing the employer’s conduct. 666 S.W.2d at 733. The court explained that ”[t]he fear of being discharged would have a deleterious effect on the exercise of a statutory right.” Id. (quoting Frampton v. Central Ind. Gas Co., 260 Ind. 249, 297 N.E.2d 425 (1973)).

. Judge Meyer was referring to United Steelworkers of America, Local No. 1617 v. General Fireproofing Co., 464 F.2d 726, 728-31 (6th Cir. 1972), a case in which the employee claimed that he was discharged at that point in his career in retaliation for his activities as president of the foremen's club.

. The Bender decision was subsequently superseded by statute. See Meredith v. C.E. Walther, Inc., 422 So.2d 761 (Ala. 1982).

. I also note that the en banc court owes less loyalty to prior division decisions than to an earlier en banc holding.

. Although the reference to forty-five states appears in a section titled "Judicial Developments,” it appears that these states may also include jurisdictions which have made statutory modifications of the at-will doctrine. See also Michael A. DiSabatino, Annotation, Modem Status of Rule that Employer May Discharge At-Will Employee for Any Reason, 12 A.L.R.4th 544 (1982 & Supp.1996).

.See, e.g., D.C.Code § 1-224 (1992) (making it a crime to coerce or threaten a witness for testifying before the Council); §§ 36-1501 et. seq. (1997) (providing statutory right of action for wrongful discharge for employees of certain contractors).

. Significantly, in footnote 5 to his concurring opinion, and in the first sentence of footnote 4, Judge Terry wisely leaves the door open for at least some measure of flexibility.

. See, e.g., Sorrells v. Garfinckel's, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, Inc., 565 A.2d 285, 289 (D.C. 1989) (contemplating that a public policy exception would be "statutorily declared”).

. The concept of judicially formulated "public policy” most frequently arises in the area of contract law, when a party to an agreement argues that its enforcement would be contrary to the public good. Courts are well-advised to exercise great restraint before invalidating an agreement when its provisions do not contravene a statute or regulation, for
the right of private contract is no small part of the liberty of the citizen and ... a most important function of courts of justice is rather to maintain and enforce contracts than to enable parties thereto to escape from their obligation on the pretext of public policy, unless it clearly appears that they contravene public right or the public welfare.
Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Voigt, 176 U.S. 498, 505, 20 S.Ct. 385, 387, 44 L.Ed. 560 (1900).
"Public policy is a very unruly horse, and when you are once astride it you never know where it will carry you.” Tracey v. Franklin, 67 A.2d 56, 58 (Del.1949) (quoting Burroughs, J. in Richardson v. Mellish, 2 Bing. 229); see also 14 Samuel Williston, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts, § 1629, at 7-8 (3d ed.1972). "Manifestly, the [public policy] principle may not be invoked by the judges of a court to promote their private notions of good or expedient policy.” Bartron v. Codington County, 68 S.D. 309, 2 N.W.2d 337, 343 (1942).
Considerations which arise in the contract context differ from those applicable here. Where competent adults have agreed upon the terms of a contract, and where those terms are not prohibited by statute or regulation, a court’s refusal to enforce the agreement reflects a very high level of judicial assertiveness. Judicial recognition of an exception to the judge-made at-will doctrine does not override any recognizable "liberty of the citizen,” Voigt, supra, 176 U.S. at 505, 20 S.Ct. at 387, and appears to me a significantly less radical step. Even in the contract area, however, I believe that the restrictions suggested in the portion of Judge Teriy’s opinion which I have quoted in the text, supra, at 180, are too confining:
Constitutions and statutes are declarations of public policy by bodies of men [and women] authorized to legislate. It is the function of the courts to interpret and apply these, so far as they go and so far as they are understandable. Some judges have thought that they must look solely to constitutions and statutes and to earlier decisions interpreting and applying them as the sources from which they may determine what public policy requires. This is far from true, even though these are the sources that are first to be considered and that often may be conclusive.
It has frequently been said that such public policy is a composite of constitutional provisions, statutes, and judicial decisions, and some courts have gone so far as to hold that it is limited to these. The obvious fallacy of such a conclusion is quite apparent from the most superficial examination. When a contract is contrary to some provision of the Constitution, we say it is prohibited by the Constitution, not by public policy. When a contract is contrary to a statute, we say it is prohibited by a statute, not by public policy. When a contract is contrary to a settled line of judicial decisions, we say it is prohibited by the law of the land, but we do not say it is contrary to public policy.
6A Corbin on Contracts, § 1375, at 15 & n. 12 (1962 & Supp.1997) (quoting Pittsburgh C., C. & St. L.R. Co. v. Kinney, 95 Ohio St. 64, 115 N.E. 505, 507(1916)).

. The specific reference in 82 Am.Jur.2d is to a "statutory right.” Id. at 688. The discussion of that right, however, embraces “exercising the right to free speech." Id. § 34, at 706.

. This court has, however, previously adopted the second enumerated exception. See Adams, supra, 597 A.2d at 32.

. Bishop was the president of a "production credit association” apparently controlled by FICB.

. In ruling in the plaintiff's favor, the court in Bishop also stated:
Recognition of the exception supports our tradition of free, direct and truthful testimony at legislative hearings, a policy Oklahoma has implicitly recognized. Cf. Okl. Stat. Ann. title 12, § 411 (1988) ("No testimony given by a witness ... before any committee ... shall be used as evidence in any criminal proceeding against him in any court-”).
908 F.2d at 662. This statutory provision, like D.C.Code § 1-224, can be read as supportive of an employee's freedom to testify. Like its District of Columbia counterpart, however, the Oklahoma statute contains no prohibition against the discharge of an employee by the employer for testifying before a legislative body. See Judge Mack’s opinion, post, at 193.

. The adoption of tort reform legislation could obviously redound to the financial advantage of a private hospital. Ms. Carl, on the other hand, was employed as a nurse, not as a Vice President or lobbyist. Her testimony before the Council would not necessarily have a negative effect on her ability to do her job. Korb's publicized statements, on the other hand, necessarily destroyed his effectiveness as a spokesman for Raytheon. Moreover, it is not readily apparent why Ms. Carl’s testimony as a plaintiff's expert witness in medical malpractice cases would negatively affect Children's Hospital if Children’s was not the defendant.