Court Opinion

ID: 9722334
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:26:11.827765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:34.269880
License: Public Domain

McDANIEL, J. J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in that portion of the majority opinion which affirms the sustaining of the demurrer as to the third, fourth, and sixth through tenth causes of action. I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which reverses the sustaining of the demurrer as to the first, second, and fifth causes of action.
*1106The majority opinion announces at the outset that “the right of privacy in the California Constitution protects Californians from actions of private employers as well as government agencies.” From this pronouncement, the majority extrapolates the further proposition that “when a private employee is terminated for refusing to take a random drug test, he may invoke the public policy exception to the at-will termination doctrine to assert a violation of his constitutional right of privacy.” There is no logical connection between these two propositions, and precedent militates against the latter.
Before turning to a refutation of the latter proposition above noted, it is worthy of observation that the majority has invoked Wilkinson v. Times Mirror Corp. (1989) 215 Cal.App.3d 1034 [264 Cal.Rptr. 194], in aid of the processes by which it reaches its underlying conclusion that the pupillary reaction eye test here involved could be an invasion of plaintiff’s privacy. In that case, Wilkinson and her coplaintiffs sought an injunction against the Times Mirror Corporation to avoid having to submit to drug testing which they perceived to be an impermissible invasion of their privacy. While it is true that the Wilkinson court stated that the right to privacy could be infringed upon by a private employer, the court went on to deny the plaintiffs’ application for an injunction. {Id., at p. 1051.)
In Wilkinson, after an exhaustive discussion of the nature of the constitutional right to privacy secured by the California Constitution, the court then proceeded to determine that drug testing of prospective employees is not an impermissible invasion of their constitutional right to privacy. On this point, the court asked rhetorically, “[d]id Matthew Bender’s request so substantially burden plaintiff’s right of privacy that the request was constitutionally unreasonable and therefore impermissible?” The court’s answer to its own question was, “We conclude not.” (Wilkinson v. Times Mirror Corp., supra, 215 Cal.App.3d 1034, 1048.) Thus, it could persuasively be argued, had plaintiff here, rather than invite discharge, first sought an injunction to avoid submission to the pupillary reaction eye test, that he would, on the strength of Wilkinson, have failed to win such an injunction.
The Wilkinson holding is one of the reasons I have urged in seeking (unsuccessfully) to persuade my colleagues that this is not a right-to-privacy case, as such. I suggest that what has led the majority astray is the misapplication of a Fourth Amendment, criminal law concept to the private employment arena. In other words, even accepting for purposes of argument that the Fourth Amendment concept of a reasonable expectation of privacy can be invoked in private employment cases, this does not mean that the nature and extent of such expectation is necessarily the same in both criminal cases and private employment cases. The policy considerations that underlie the limiting of privacy intrusions which could lead to criminal *1107prosecution and incarceration are certainly more rigorous than those policy considerations which justify intrusions which meet the compelling need for a drug-free workplace.
Implicit in the Wilkinson holding, which held the intrusion into plaintiff’s privacy to be permissible, is the distinction above delineated, namely that an individual’s reasonable expectations of privacy in a civil employment setting must be far more circumscribed than those in a setting where the individual faces a possible criminal prosecution.
Thus, for the majority to conclude that the pupillary reaction eye test is an arguably impermissible invasion of privacy does not resolve the main issue presented by the pleadings; it is only the beginning. What needs to be decided here, even conceding that an invasion of privacy of sorts is present, is whether the refusal to submit to the test is or is not a legally acceptable reason for discharge.
In my view, precedent provides an exact and ready answer to the real issue in the case before us. More particularly, under Foley v. Interactive Data Corp. (1988) 47 Cal.3d 654 [254 Cal.Rptr. 211, 765 P.2d 373], plaintiff cannot state a cause of action for wrongful discharge on the theory of a perceived impermissible invasion of his privacy, because, under the Foley test, plaintiff’s assertion of his private right to be free from drug testing does not serve the public interest.
In Foley, the Supreme Court established two tests for determining whether a discharge was against public policy, and hence tortious. The first test was whether the discharge “affects a duty which inures to the benefit of the public at large rather than to a particular employee” (Foley v. Interactive Data Corp., supra, 47 Cal.3d 654, 669); the second test was whether the “interest at stake was . . . one which could not properly be circumvented by agreement of the parties.” (Id., at p. 670, fn. 12.) According to Foley, only if both questions could be answered in the affirmative, would the alleged policy be truly “public.”
When the Supreme Court posed the foregoing questions in relation to the duty alleged by Foley, both answers were negative. More specifically, the court concluded that an employee’s duty to disclose to his employer adverse information about a fellow employee served only the private interest of the employer, and that an express agreement between the parties that the employee should not disclose such information would not be contrary to public policy.
In reaching this conclusion, the court reasoned that “[p]ast decisions recognizing a tort action for discharge in violation of public policy seek to
*1108protect the public, by protecting the employee who refuses to commit a crime (Tameny [v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (1980)] 27 Cal.3d 167; Petermann, [v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters (1959)] 174 Cal.App.2d 184), who reports criminal activity to proper authorities (Garibaldi v. Lucky Food Stores, Inc. (9th Cir. 1984) 726 F.2d 1367, 1374; Palmateer v. International Harvester Co. [(Ill. 1981)] 421 N.E.2d 876, 879-880), or who discloses other illegal, unethical, or unsafe practices (Hentzel v. Singer Co. (1982) 138 Cal.App.3d 290 [188 Cal.Rptr. 159, 35 A.L.R.4th 1015] [working conditions hazardous to employees]). No equivalent public interest bars the discharge of the present plaintiff.” (Foley v. Interactive Data Corp., supra, 47 Cal.3d 654, 670-671.)
So it is here. Although the public policy in Foley was alleged in terms of a duty and the public policy here is alleged in terms of a right, the dispositive questions are the same. In other words, we must ask whether plaintiff’s discharge affects a right which, when exercised, inures to the benefit of the public at large rather than to the plaintiff alone, and whether an express agreement between defendant and plaintiff which obligated plaintiff to waive that right would be void as against public policy. Clearly the answer to both questions is negative. More specifically, plaintiff’s right not to participate in the pupillary reaction test benefits him alone, and a contract provision obligating him to participate in such a test would not be invalid. Because, to repeat, “a tort action for discharge in violation of public policy seek[s] to protect the public” (Foley v. Interactive Data Corp., supra, 47 Cal.3d 654, 670, italics added), plaintiff cannot plead such an action to protect himself, and defendant’s demurrer thereto was properly sustained without leave to amend.
The majority, in holding that plaintiff may be able to plead an action for discharge in violation of public policy, pays lip service to Foley, but does not faithfully track Foley's analysis. Instead, the majority bases its holding on four reasons, here addressed in turn.
First, the majority asserts that “privacy . . . is at least as fundamental as the antitrust statutes in Tameny or the perjury statutes in Petermann" (see maj. opn., ante, p. 1096). In other words, apparently, the right of the plaintiff in this case to refuse to take the eye test is at least as fundamental as the right of the plaintiff in Tameny to refuse to engage in price-fixing or the right of the plaintiff in Petermann to refuse to testify falsely to a state legislative committee, rights which the Foley court held were entitled to protection. However, the Foley issue is not whether the right is fundamental, but whether it “protects] the public.” (Foley v. Interactive Data Corp., supra, 47 Cal.3d 654, 670, italics added.) Refusing to engage in price-fixing and refusing to testify falsely before a state legislative committee both *1109protect the public;1 refusing to participate in a pupillary reaction test does not.2
3Accordingly, the former are covered by the public policy rule in Foley, the latter is not.
Next, the majority states that plaintiff’s right not to participate in the eye test “is a right he shares with all other employees,” and that his assertion of the right “benefits all Californians.” However, unlike the plaintiffs in Wilkinson, plaintiff here did not file an action on behalf of all others similarly situated, nor did he seek declaratory or injunctive relief. Accordingly, if plaintiff’s assertion of his right not to be discharged “benefits all Californians,” it does so only in a very limited, indirect sense, if at all, and certainly does not do so in the sense contemplated by Foley.1
Next, the majority argues, although defendant and plaintiff could agree that plaintiff would not assert his right to privacy (presumably, in connection with the eye test), that defendant and plaintiff could not agree that defendant could “visit [plaintiff’s] home at midnight each night to search for drugs.” To what avail? I fail to see how the second agreement follows from the first. This amounts to arguing that A and B can agree that A will lend B money, but A and B cannot agree that A can collect the money at gunpoint. Because the second agreement does not follow necessarily or logically from the first, it does not invalidate it either.
Finally, the majority asserts that “the dispute here is more than a dispute between Mr. Semore and Kerr-McGee. It is a dispute over the role of drug testing in the workplace.” While this may be true in an underlying sense, it is irrelevant to the issue here and an issue not even remotely raised by the pleadings. Such characterization is irrelevant because all actions for wrongful discharge involve disputes over the propriety of particular conduct in the workplace. However, under Foley, it is only when the conduct which led to the discharge benefits the public at large rather than a particular employer or employee that the discharge is in violation of public policy. Otherwise, *1110every employee who alleged that he or she had been wrongfully discharged could allege that the discharge had been in violation of public policy, thus rendering meaningless the guidelines promulgated in Foley for such a cause of action.
In sum, while the majority’s somewhat heroic concept that the plaintiff here, by asserting his own right to privacy, is fulfilling a role similar to that of the Spartan defenders of the pass against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.E.) could perhaps have proved beguiling as an a priori proposition, the legal reality is that Foley has already occupied the field. Foley has ruled that employment termination cases are not to be decided on the basis of heroics, but rather on the basis of a determination of whether the plaintiff’s, insubordinate conduct has been pursued in the public or private interest. Under the Foley guidelines by which such a determination is to be made, this is not even a close case.
Moreover, because the wrongful termination issue is precisely subject to the control of and disposition by Foley, it is appropriate to invoke Auto Equity Sales, Inc. v. Superior Court (1962) 57 Cal.2d 450 [20 Cal.Rptr. 321, 369 P.2d 937]. In Auto Equity Sales, the Supreme Court said, “[u]nder the doctrine of stare decisis, all tribunals exercising inferior jurisdiction are required to follow decisions of courts exercising superior jurisdiction .... The decisions of this court are binding upon and must be followed by all the state courts of California.” )Id., at p. 455.) Accordingly, because Foley is wholly dispositive of the wrongful termination issue, as presented in count one of the complaint, this court is duty bound under Auto Equity Sales to follow and apply Foley.
In reliance on the foregoing analysis, I would sustain the demurrer as to plaintiffs’ first cause of action for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. As to plaintiffs’ second and fifth causes of action, for, respectively, termination without good cause and breach of contract, my conclusion that the discharge was not in violation of public policy would invalidate the sufficiency of those counts as well. (See maj. opn., fn. 8.) Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court’s judgment of dismissal in its entirety.
Respondents’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied May 31, 1990.

 Price-fixing, or violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act (15 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.) and the Cartwright Act (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 16720 et seq.), by definition involves the public; perjury (Pen. Code, § 118) is included in title 7 of the Penal Code, which is entitled “Of Crimes Against Public Justice.” (underscoring added.)

 Actually, it could reasonably be argued that employees who refuse to participate in drug testing do so in derogation of the public interest, and employees who consent to such testing do so in protection of the public weal.

 At oral argument, it was significant to me that plaintiff’s attorney, when asked whether the right which plaintiff was asserting inured to his benefit or to the benefit of the public, answered that it inured to plaintiff’s benefit and “later” to the benefit of the public. The attorney also conceded that this was not a “traditional” Foley case, i.e., did not involve the type of right recognized by Foley and its predecessors as coming under the public policy rule, and that the “main focus” of this case was plaintiff’s contract claim, and not his tort (wrongful discharge) claim.