Court Opinion

ID: 9942534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-21 15:11:38.916674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:48:12.149355
License: Public Domain

[J-4-2023] [MO: Brobson, J.]
                     IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
                                 EASTERN DISTRICT

    CARA SALSBERG,                                   :   No. 7 EAP 2022
                                                     :
                        Appellant                    :   Appeal from the Judgment of
                                                     :   Superior Court entered on
                                                     :   September 15, 2021 at No. 623 EDA
                v.                                   :   2019 affirming the Order entered on
                                                     :   January 17, 2019 in the Court of
                                                     :   Common Pleas, Philadelphia
    DONNA MANN AND DREXEL                            :   County, Civil Division at No.
    UNIVERSITY,                                      :   170603584.
                                                     :
                        Appellees                    :   ARGUED: March 7, 2023

                                    CONCURRING OPINION

JUSTICE WECHT                                            DECIDED: February 21, 2024
        I join the Majority Opinion in full. The tort of intentional interference with contractual

relations can apply to a third party’s interference with an employee’s at-will employment

relationship with his or her employer. I write separately to elaborate upon how this Court’s

recognition of this tort fits into the dynamics of at-will employment.

        In declining to recognize the viability of this tort in the context of at-will employment,

the Superior Court’s en banc majority relied upon Hennessy v. Santiago.1 In that decision

a quarter century ago, a panel of the Superior Court had declared without elaboration that

“an action for intentional interference with performance of a contract in the employment

context applies only to interference with a prospective employment relationship whether

at-will or not, not a presently existing at-will employment relationship.”2

1       708 A.2d 1269 (Pa. Super. 1998).
2       Id. at 1279 (emphasis added).
      The Superior Court’s allegiance to its Hennessy holding is perplexing. In its

decision in this case, the Superior Court acknowledged that there was (unspecified)

“tension in Hennessy’s explicit reasoning,” and that Hennessy provided little explanation

of why, in terms of an employee’s expectation of continued employment, there was a

“critical” difference between prospective at-will employment and current at-will

employment.3 Yet, rather than confront this tension, the Superior Court embraced it.4

Pennsylvania tort law, the Superior Court explained, provides a remedy for interference

with a prospective contractual relationship because in that scenario the relationship “is

something less than a contractual right, something more than a mere hope.” 5 By contrast,

the Superior Court opined, there was “nothing prospective” about Cara Salsberg’s

relationship with Drexel University, because “any expectation of continued at-will

employment is nothing more than a mere hope.”6

      This makes little sense. If a current at-will employee’s expectation of employment

is a “mere hope,” why would a prospective at-will employee have “more than a mere hope”

about a “mere hope”? An employer may rescind an offer of at-will employment before the

employment commences or may fire the at-will employee on day one of his employment

or on any day thereafter.7 That no one holds entitlement to a particular duration of

3     Salsberg v. Mann, 262 A.3d 1267, 1271-72 (Pa. Super. 2021) (en banc).
4     See id. at 1272.
5     Id. at 1271 (quoting Thompson Coal Co. v. Pike Coal Co., 412 A.2d 466, 471 (Pa.
1979)).
6     Id.
7      The law does recognize that certain employees may have a reasonable
expectation of employment after accepting an employer’s offer. But that is only the case
when the employment arrangement was not, in fact, at-will. See Cashdollar v. Mercy
Hosp. of Pittsburgh, 595 A.2d 70, 73-74 (Pa. Super. 1991) (holding that employment was
not at-will and employer could not discharge employee without just cause for a reasonable
(continued…)

                            [J-4-2023] [MO: Brobson, J.] - 2
employment—not the employer, not a current employee, and not a prospective

employee—is inherent in the very nature of at-will employment. With few exceptions, the

employer is free to terminate the employee’s employment, just as the employee is free to

quit.8

         What Salsberg had a right to expect, however, was that Drexel would pay her

compensation in exchange for her labor, and that the arrangement would continue under

the agreed-upon terms until one of the parties changed or ended the arrangement. That

Drexel could terminate Salsberg’s employment for any reason not prohibited by law does

not give a third party license to interfere with Drexel and Salsberg’s employment

relationship.

         Properly understood and applied, this tort does not create a new avenue for pursuit

of a wrongful discharge claim. Nor does it enmesh courts in personnel disputes or

otherwise interfere with the fundamental principles of at-will employment. In most cases,

if the alleged tortfeasor is the plaintiff’s co-worker, that person is not a third party in relation

to the plaintiff and the employer as a matter of law.9 So long as the co-worker acts within

the scope of her employment, that co-worker acts as the employer’s agent, not as a third

party.10

time because employee provided additional consideration by incurring hardship beyond
what any salaried professional would incur).
8      See Geary v. U.S. Steel Corp., 319 A.2d 174, 176 (Pa. 1974) (“Absent a statutory
or contractual provision to the contrary, the law has taken for granted the power of either
party to terminate an employment relationship for any or no reason.”).
9        See Maj. Op. at 25-26 (noting that, because a corporation is a legal entity, it acts
only through its officers, agents, and employees and cannot interfere with a contract with
itself); see also Nix v. Temple Univ. of Com. Sys. of Higher Educ., 596 A.2d 1132, 1137
(Pa. Super. 1991) (same).
10     See Maj. Op. at 27 (holding that a plaintiff has no cause of action against a co-
worker for the intentional interference with contractual relations between the plaintiff and
(continued…)

                                [J-4-2023] [MO: Brobson, J.] - 3
       On the other side of the same coin we find the closely related tort element that the

third party’s actions must be improper.11 The Majority stops short of applying this element

in light of its holding.12 It bears repeating, however, that this common law principle acts

as a further restraint in cases like this one, where the alleged third party is the plaintiff’s

former supervisor and the alleged interference involves the supervisor’s actions in

connection with managing or terminating the plaintiff’s at-will employment.13 A supervisor,

on behalf of the employer, often has the authority and privilege to discipline or end the

employment of the plaintiff for any lawful reason. Even in situations where the employer

did not provide the supervisor with the direct authority to terminate the plaintiff’s

employment, the supervisor, as the employer’s agent charged with managing the

her employer “unless the alleged misconduct of the co-worker falls outside the scope of
the co-worker’s employment or authority”).
11      Walnut St. Assocs., Inc. v. Brokerage Concepts, Inc., 20 A.3d 468, 475 (Pa. 2011)
(“Ours is a free society where citizens may freely interact and exchange information.
Tortious interference, as a basis for civil liability, does not operate to burden such
interactions, but rather, to attach a reasonable consequence when the defendant’s
intentional interference was ‘improper.’”).
12      See Maj. Op. at 26-27 n.16 (“Given . . . our ultimate conclusion . . . that Salsberg’s
claim fails for lack of a third party, we need not proceed to address the nature of the third
party’s conduct as ‘privileged,’ ‘justified,’ or otherwise ‘improper.’”); see also Adler, Barish,
Daniels, Levin and Creskoff v. Epstein, 393 A.2d 1175, 1184 n.17 (Pa. 1978) (explaining
that, instead of the Restatement of Torts (First)’s approach of deciding whether the third
party had the “privilege” to act, the Restatement of Torts (Second) examines more broadly
whether the interference was “improper or not under the circumstances”).
13     Accord Menefee v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 329 A.2d 216 (Pa. 1974).
Menefee, a radio talk show host, was a party to an employment contract with CBS, Inc.
and a radio station wholly owned by CBS. The station’s general manager and a vice
president of CBS exercised the contractual right of the corporate entities to end Menefee’s
employment upon thirteen weeks’ notice. Menefee sued the general manager and the
vice president for intentional inference with contractual relations. This Court held that
because the general manager and vice president had the “privilege to advise the station
on handling its employees” as part of their employment, they also possessed the privilege
to “cause the station to terminate the contract.” Id. at 221.

                               [J-4-2023] [MO: Brobson, J.] - 4
plaintiff’s job performance, has the authority and privilege to share with other agents of

the employer his or her perception of the plaintiff’s performance.

       As the Majority ably recounts, even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable

to Salsberg, Salsberg did not prove that her former supervisor, Donna Mann, acted

outside the scope of Mann’s employment, and accordingly did not prove that Mann acted

as a third party.14 Salsberg alleged that Mann’s criticisms of Salsberg’s performance

were unwarranted and unfair, and that Mann’s characterization of Salsberg’s performance

was motivated by reasons personal to Mann, such as Mann’s dislike of, or jealousy of,

Salsberg. But Mann, Drexel’s agent in a supervisory role, was authorized to assess

Salsberg’s performance.

       When an alleged tortfeasor supervises the plaintiff’s employment, and the plaintiff’s

allegations pertain to such supervision, the plaintiff rarely will be able to prove that the

supervisor acted improperly, without privilege, and outside the scope of employment as

a third party. The law does not prohibit unfair treatment of an employee, except where

the treatment offends certain limited public policy exceptions,15 violates the terms of a

collective bargaining agreement or employment contract, or runs afoul of anti-

discrimination or other employment statutes.16 In an at-will system, the only recourse for

an employee whose employer is treating her unfairly, but lawfully, is to quit. Whether one

14     See Maj. Op. at 31-39.
15     See Clay v. Advanced Computer Applications, Inc., 559 A.2d 917, 918 (Pa. 1989)
(“[A]s a general rule, there is no common law cause of action against an employer for
termination of an at-will employment relationship,” except “in only the most limited of
circumstances, where discharges of at-will employees would threaten clear mandates of
public policy.”).
16      See Renna v. PPL Elec. Utils., Inc., 207 A.3d 355, 369 (Pa. Super. 2019) (“Anti-
discrimination statutes do not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace,
only harassment that constitutes discrimination because of specified protected
classifications.”).

                             [J-4-2023] [MO: Brobson, J.] - 5
agrees or disagrees with this system, one cannot deny that it is premised upon each

party’s general freedom to end the relationship without allowing legal recourse to the other

for prospective unearned salary, and notwithstanding the possibility of disruption to the

employer’s business due to the loss of the employee’s labor.17

       The bottom line is that interpersonal relations, warts and all, are part of any job.18

Mann’s dislike of Salsberg may not make business sense for Drexel if Salsberg truly was

a valuable productive employee. But Mann’s assessment of Salsberg’s job performance,

even if inaccurate or distorted, is still within the scope of Mann’s duties on behalf of Drexel,

and her actions were therefore permissible and insufficient to support a claim for

intentional interference with contractual relations. Mann may well be an ineffective and

poor supervisor. But she is not a third-party tortfeasor.

       Justice Donohue joins this concurring opinion.

17     See Geary v. U.S. Steel Corp., 319 A.2d 174, 177 n.8 (noting that some degree of
harm to the other is a foreseeable and societally tolerated consequence of giving each
party the freedom to end the relationship).
18    Id. at 179 (“[E]ven an unusually gifted person may be of no use to his employer if
he cannot work effectively with fellow employees.”).

                              [J-4-2023] [MO: Brobson, J.] - 6