Court Opinion

ID: 9710337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:07:13.354363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:55.974254
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). While I agree with the majority that the plaintiffs claim cannot survive a summary judgment motion, I write separately to emphasize that it is the evidence, not the complaint, that is insufficient.
The complaint alleges that the employer violated a fundamental and well-defined public policy articulated in sec. 101.17, Stats., by discharging the plaintiff because he told the employer that a machine was in an unsafe condition that violated a state safety law. I con-*148elude that the complaint states a cause of action for wrongful discharge under the standards set forth by this court in Brockmeyer and Wandry.1 The plaintiffs affidavits and depositions are, however, in my opinion, insufficient to withstand the summary judgment motion.
By discussing the complaint and the evidence together, the majority dilutes the strength of the plaintiffs allegations with the weakness of the evidence. I shall treat the nature of the cause of action, the complaint and the evidence separately.
The Nature of the Cause of Action. In Brockmeyer, the court held that an at-will employee has a cause of action for wrongful discharge when the discharge “is contrary to a fundamental and well-defined public policy” articulated in a statutory or constitutional provision. The Brockmeyer court ruled that “employers will be held liable for those terminations that effectuate an unlawful end.” Brockmeyer, 113 Wis. 2d at 573. In Wan-dry, this court recognized that the public policy of a statute is not limited to the literal language of the statute or the circumstances described in the statute. Wandry, 129 Wis. 2d at 42, 47.
The public policy rule adopted in Brockmeyer balances the interests of the employer, employee and the public. The rule is intended to protect employees against discharges that contravene fundamental public policies established by statutory and constitutional provisions without interfering unduly with an employer’s legitimate discretion to discharge at-will employees.
*149This court has stated several guidelines for determining whether an employee has a claim for wrongful discharge under the Brockmeyer rule.2 One guideline is that a discharge is actionable when an employee is discharged for refusing to violate a statute or constitutional provision (the “refusal guideline”). A second guideline is that a discharge is actionable when the employee is discharged for actions consistent with a clear and compelling public policy embodied in a statute or constitution. Each of the guidelines is a different but equally valid characterization of the kind of discharge that is actionable. Each is a manifestation of the kind of discharge that “is contrary to a fundamental and well-defined public policy” and therefore the basis for a wrongful discharge action under Brockmeyer.
The majority’s exclusive reliance on the refusal guideline is not warranted by either the reasoning or the results of Brockmeyer and Wandry. Without referring to any particular passage or page in Brockmeyer, the majority asserts that Brockmeyer “specifically rejected” the idea that a discharge is actionable when based on *150conduct consistent with clear and compelling public policy articulated in a statutory or constitutional provision. At 9. The court in Brockmeyer accepted that very idea. 113 Wis. 2d at 574.
The majority’s reliance on the refusal guideline ultimately founders on the facts and language in Wandry where we upheld the plaintiffs cause of action for wrongful discharge. The fundamental public policy allegedly violated by the discharge in Wandry “aimed at preventing employers from using coercive economic power to shift the burden of a work-related loss from the employer to the employee, without giving the employee an opportunity to establish that the loss was not caused by the employee’s carelessness, negligence or wilful misconduct.” Wandry, 129 Wis. 2d at 46-47 (emphasis added). This fundamental public policy restrained the employer’s conduct, not the employee’s conduct. It is the employer’s conduct of requesting reimbursement, not the employee’s conduct of reimbursing the employer, that violates the statute. The conduct of the employee in Wandry who refused to reimburse the employer cannot coherently be construed as a refusal “to violate a constitutional or statutory provision.” At 6. The court in Wandry did not decide the case under the refusal guideline. Wandry, 129 Wis. 2d at 48. By resisting her employer’s use of economic coercion, the employee in Wandry acted consistently with rights or protections afforded her by the statute; the employee acted consistently with public policy, and her discharge undermined a clear and compelling public policy prohibiting such coercion.
The majority appears to stress that the triggering factor in a wrongful discharge case is the employer’s “command” to the employee to act. Let us suppose in *151Wandry that there had been no direct command to the employee to reimburse the employer but that the employer’s policy or expectation or intent was that an employee would make reimbursement or be discharged. Let us further suppose that the employee of this hypothetical employer does not reimburse the employer and is fired. This hypothetical case should be controlled by Wandry. Whether the “command” is expressed or implied from the fact that the employer will fire an employee for failing to make reimbursement should not be the distinguishing factor.
The majority strains to cast Wandry into the refusal guideline. Indeed, with similar straining this case may be molded as one of refusal. See margin at note 6.
Regardless of how a fact situation is characterized — as one in which an employee’s conduct was consistent with public policy, or an employee’s conduct was consistent with public policy, or an employee refused to act in violaton of a statutory or constitutional provision, or an employee refused to obey an employer’s command to violate a statutory or constitutional provision, or the employer’s discharge violated public policy — the unifying principle of the Brockmeyer doctrine is that an employer may not use the power to discharge to undermine a fundamental and well-defined public policy embodied in the literal language or in the spirit of a statute or constitutional provision. Not only employees but also the public would suffer if the discharge power enhanced the ability of employers to violate public policy.
The Complaint. Under Brockmeyer, motions for dismissal or for summary judgment play a special role in the wrongful discharge action. This court directed the circuit courts to “screen cases on motions to dismiss for *152failure to state a claim or for summary judgment if the discharged employee cannot allege a clear expression of public policy.” Brockmeyer, 113 Wis. 2d at 574 (emphasis added). Ruling on these motions is the means by which the circuit court protects employers from unjustified interference with their discretion to terminate at-will employees.
To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint for wrongful discharge must (1) identify a fundamental and well-defined public policy,3 and (2) allege facts that, liberally construed, show that the discharge contravenes that fundamental and well-defined public policy.
In his complaint, the plaintiff cites sec. 101.17, Stats. 1983-84, as one of several statutory sections he claims was violated by the discharge. Section 101.17 prohibits the installation or use of a machine, mechanical device or steam boiler that does not fully comply *153with safety requirements established by state law or the published orders of the Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations. Any person violating this statute is subject to a forfeiture.4
Section 101.17 is designed to protect employees and “frequenters” from danger to life, health and safety by discouraging employers from using or installing unsafe machines and encouraging them to use and install safe machines. Section 101.17 embodies a fundamental and well-defined public policy that an employer who installs or uses machines must keep informed about the applicable state laws and administrative orders as well as the condition of the machines. Intrinsic in this employee safety statute and in the employer’s duty to keep informed is an employee’s right to report safety violations to the employer. The public policy embodied in sec. 101.17 proscribes employer conduct that dams the flow of essential safety information to the employer who uses and installs the machines from the employees, the persons protected under the statutes and familiar with the machines.
The complaint alleges that the plaintiff was discharged because he “complained to his superiors respecting the defendant’s failure to adequately guard machinery which machinery was dangerous to the safety of employees who were required to remove cans from it, *154on insecure ladders, while the machinery was moving.5 In support of this allegation the plaintiff cites sec. 101.17 and an administrative rule requiring cutting machines to be properly guarded. Wis. Admin. Code, Ind. Sec. 1.41. Construing the factual allegations liberally, sec. 802.06(2)(f), Stats. 1983-84, the complaint alleges that an unsafe condition of the machine existed, that it violated a rule which implements sec. 101.17, and that the plaintiff was discharged for reporting the unsafe condition. I would hold that the complaint states a claim for wrongful discharge upon which relief may be granted. The plaintiffs reporting a safety violation is consistent with a clear and compelling public policy embodied in the statute. The employer is liable for wrongful discharge when it discharges an employee for conduct that is consistent with a clear and compelling *155public policy.6 A discharge for reporting a safety violation which contravenes a statute clearly contravenes the public welfare and gravely violates paramount requirements of public interest. Brockmeyer, 113 Wis. 2d at 573, 574, 577, 579.
The Depositions and Affidavits. Once the complaint is found sufficient, the question becomes whether the affidavits and other supporting papers create a genuine issue of material fact. To determine whether a genuine issue of material fact exists, a court first considers whether the moving party has made out a prima facie case. If the moving party establishes a prima facie case, a court examines the papers of the opposing party to see if they create a genuine issue of material fact. Bank of Two Rivers v. Zimmer, 112 Wis. 2d 624, 632, 334 N.W.2d 230 (1983). Where the defendant is the moving party, a prima facie case consists of a defense that would defeat the plaintiffs cause of action. Kraemer Bros. v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 89 Wis. 2d 555, 566, 278 N.W.2d 857 (1979).
*156The defendant in this case produced evidence that the plaintiff was discharged for just cause, a defense that would defeat a claim for wrongful discharge. The defendant showed that the plaintiff left work early and falsified his time card. The discharge immediately followed this breach of company rules. The plaintiff was told the reason for the discharge at the time he was discharged and admits to the conduct in question.
Once a moving party has established a prima facie case for summary judgment, the opposing party “may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of the pleadings, but must, by affidavits or other statutory means, set forth specific facts showing that there exists a genuine issue requiring a trial.” Board of Regents v. Mussalem, 94 Wis. 2d 657, 673, 289 N.W.2d 801 (1980).
The plaintiff claims that he was fired because he reported the violation of sec. 101.17, not because he left his job early. The evidence is that the plaintiff made a single report about the lack of a guard on the necker-flanger machine, a condition that may violate an administrative rule requiring guards on cutting machines. The plaintiff offers little if any evidence of the nature of the safety problem, or the nature of the violation of the law or rule, or of his report being the basis for the discharge. The plaintiff offers no evidence of what sort of guard was supposedly missing or that the necker-flanger is a cutting machine. The plaintiff himself dismisses the significance of his report concerning the safety of the necker-flanger machine by characterizing any problem with the machine as “minor.” The record contains no showing that the plaintiff renewed or pressed his objection to this machine, no hint of a history of suppression of this employee’s or any employee’s reports of safety violations, and no showing that the plaintiffs discharge *157immediately followed the safety report. Nothing in this record implies that the discharge was predicated on the plaintiffs report of this safety violation.
The defendant has produced evidence of a just-cause dismissal. The plaintiffs evidence is not sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact warranting a trial. In this case one tenuous complaint standing alone is not a basis for inferring that the discharge was predicated on employee conduct that was consistent with a clear and compelling public policy. The undisputed facts and the reasonable inferences drawn from the facts do not provide a factual basis for the plaintiffs claim.
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the circuit court granting summary judgment and would reverse the decision of the court of appeals.
I am authorized to state that CHIEF JUSTICE NATHAN S. HEFFERNAN and JUSTICE WILLIAM A. BABLITCH join in this concurrence.

 Brockmeyer v. Dun & Bradstreet, 113 Wis. 2d 561, 335 N.W.2d 834 (1983); Wandry v. Bulls Eye Credit, 129 Wis. 2d 37, 384 N.W.2d 325 (1986).

 “1. An employer is liable for discharge if it discharges an employee for refusing to violate a constitutional or statutory provision. Employers will be held liable for those terminations that effectuate an unlawful end.
“2. The discharge must clearly contravene the public welfare and gravely violate paramount requirements of public interest.
“3. An employer is liable for wrongful discharge if the employer discharges an employee for conduct that is consistent with a clear and compelling public policy.
“4. An employer is not liable for wrongful discharge merely because the employee’s conduct precipitating the discharge was praiseworthy or the public derived some benefit from it.”
Wandry, 129 Wis. 2d at 43 (citations to Brockmeyer omitted).

 This complaint attempts to satisfy this requirement by string-citing 3 state constitutional provisions and 20 statutes, but does not specify which public policy is implicated in the action. One statute cited has 12 subsections and covers 6 double-column pages in the statute book. The subject matter of the statutes extends from mis-branding food, to solid and hazardous waste facilities and management, to fraudulent writings, to protection of witnesses of crime. A statute may articulate several public policies.
This court placed the burden on the complainant to “allege a clear expression of [a fundamental and well-defined] public policy” to enable the circuit court to screen out at an early stage of the judicial proceedings those cases which do not satisfy the requisites of a wrongful discharge action. Brockmeyer, 113 Wis. 2d at 574. A complaint should express clearly the public policy at issue to withstand a motion to dismiss.
The circuit court should construe the complaint strictly to determine whether the plaintiff has satisfied the burden of clearly expressing the public policy and the constitutional or statutory provisions.

 Sec. 101.17, Stats. 1983-84, provides as follows:
“Machines and boilers, safety requirement. No machine, mechanical device, or steam boiler shall be installed or used in this state which does not fully comply with the requirements of the laws of this state enacted for the safety of employes and frequenters in places of employment and public buildings and with the orders of the department adopted and published in conformity with ss. 101.01 to 101.25. Any person violating this section shall be subject to the forfeitures provided in s. 101.02(12) and (13).”

 My discussion focuses on this allegation. The complaint also alleges that the plaintiffs reports about falsification of time cards and expense reports, mishandling of hazardous waste, and a defective ladder led to his discharge.
With regard to the time cards, the plaintiff does not establish the impropriety, much less the illegality, of the practices he labels “falsification of time cards.” His allegations concerning expense reports are equally unsupported.
With regard to hazardous waste, the plaintiff admits that the employer actually encouraged him to continue to monitor the handling of hazardous waste in the plant and gave him some responsibility for making sure that the wastes were handled properly. The plaintiff offers evidence that only indefinitely and generally describes the handling practices he was concerned about. He points to no specific incident and offers no evidence to show that the practices he complained about violated any statute or administrative rule.
With regard to the insecure ladder, the plaintiff cites an administrative rule detailing certain requirements for ladders but produces no evidence that any of these requirements were violated.

 In Wandry and in this case the fundamental and well-defined public policy regulates the behavior of the employer rather than the employee. In both cases the statutes protect the employee. Using the interpretation of the “refusal guideline” adopted by the majority to account for Wandry, the allegations in the complaint in this case— which for purposes of a motion to dismiss are accepted as true — can be read to say that the plaintiff refused to remain silent about safety violations, refused to cooperate with the employer in using an unsafe machine, and refused to close the lines of communication regarding statutory safety violations, thereby refusing to violate a fundamental and well-defined public policy articulated in sec. 101.17. The employer’s “command” in this case to the employee not to report statutory safety violations is implied from the employer’s imposition of sanctions on the employee’s conduct, namely, discharging the employee for reporting a statutory safety violation.