Court Opinion

ID: 9488500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:47:27.557019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:55.773808
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the majority opinion. I write separately only to explain my understanding on one point of the majority’s analysis.
New York has adopted the common law rule that “an employment relationship is presumed to be a hiring at will, terminable at any time by either party.” Sabetay v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 69 N.Y.2d 329, 333, 506 N.E.2d 919, 920, 514 N.Y.S.2d 209, 211 (1987). Nonetheless, the relationship is still a contractual one. Although an action for breach cannot ordinarily be maintained unless the parties have expressly modified the at-will presumption, see Lerman v. Medical Assocs., 160 A.D.2d 838, 839, 554 N.Y.S.2d 272, 273 (1990), the terminating party is still required to notify the other party, either by words or by actions, that the employment relationship has ended, see, e.g., Cal.Lab. Code § 2922 (“An employment, having no specified term, may be terminated at the will of either party on notice to the other.”); cf. Town & Country House & Home Serv. v. Newbery, 3 N.Y.2d 554, 561, 147 N.E.2d 724, 728, 170 N.Y.S.2d 328, 334 (1958) (holding that advance notice is not required). Smith’s claim in this action is that UPS’s decision to terminate him was in violation of the ADA, and therefore, the key date is when he was terminated. Because termination requires notice (but not advance notice), that date could not be prior to when UPS informed him that the employment relationship had ended.
The date notice is received will not be the operative date in every ease in which the date of a discriminatory act is at issue. For instance, a decision to deny tenure, such as that made in Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250, 101 S.Ct. 498, 66 L.Ed.2d 431 (1980), does not require notice to be effective, and occurs at the date it is made, see Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 8, 102 S.Ct. 28, 29, 70 L.Ed.2d 6 (1981) (per curiam), not when the applicant is notified of the decision. Of course, as the Supreme Court made clear in Ricks, the statute of limitations does not begin running until notice is given. Ricks, 449 U.S. at 261-62, 101 S.Ct. at 505-06. However, the issue in a case like this one is not the date of the act which triggers the running of the limitations period, but rather, the date on which the allegedly discriminatory act took place. When the alleged discriminatory act is a termination, these dates will probably always coincide. But in the context of other employment decisions that are effective without regard to the receipt of notice, the date of the discriminatory act and the date on which the statute of limitations begins to run will often differ.