Court Opinion

ID: 9718189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:18:30.126866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:57.707224
License: Public Domain

REILLY, Senior Judge,
concurring:
Unlike my concurring colleague, I found no difficulty whatsoever in agreeing with Judge Farrell’s opinion holding that the dismissal of appellant-plaintiff’s complaint must be affirmed. This disposition was compelled by controlling precedent, including not only Adams v. George W. Cochran & Co., 597 A.2d 28 (D.C.1991), but also by Ivy v. Army Times Publishing Co., 428 A.2d 831 (D.C.1981) (en banc) and the cases cited in Hall v. Ford, 272 U.S.App.D.C. 301, 313, 856 F.2d 255, 267 (1988). I would have refrained from expressing my own views had it not been for Judge Schwelb’s separate opinion indicating that the issue presented by this particular appeal warrants en banc consideration of the employee at-will doctrine.
It is true that some state appellate courts (but by no means a majority of them) have carved out an exception protecting from discharge employees who have reported illegal activities of fellow workers to higher management, even though they failed to report such activities to law enforcement authorities.
Appellant cites such examples as Adler v. American Standard Corp., 538 F.Supp, 572 (D.Md.1982) (where employee was discharged for threatening to disclose bribery of public officials and falsification of documents); Sheets v. Teddy’s Frosted Foods, Inc., 179 Conn. 471, 427 A.2d 385 (1980) (quality control director and operations manager fired for advising employer of false labeling of food products in violation of state pure food and drug statute); Cum-mins v. EG & G Sealol, Inc., 690 F.Supp. 134 (D.R.I.1988) (dischargee challenged possible illegal price fixing scheme). Should this court ever contemplate the possibility of adopting such a rule of decision, I should like to point out that the instant case is anything but an appropriate one to prompt a departure from well established doctrine.
What we have here is not a1 case where the dischargee had discovered any illegal conduct on the part of another employee and reported it to higher management, only to find that exposure of such criminal activity was so unwelcome that he lost his job.1 All that this dischargee had done, according to his complaint (paragraph 6(b)), was to report on “several occasions” to Vice President Dawes that Henry Sy (the manager of the Southwest branch) “had been arriving at the bank extremely early; had been working very late hours and had failed to take mandated [sic] vacations,” all of which plaintiff advised Dawes were indicative of a bank employee who sought to gain the trust of his superiors to enable him to embezzle funds or otherwise commit acts of theft of money or other valuable property at the bank. Dawes dismissed all of plaintiff’s reports concerning Sy without follow-up or investigation. Indeed, subsequent to plaintiff’s termination and on Dawes recommendation, Sy was appointed manager of the main office.2
Although the complaint (para. 10) describes the conduct to which he drew the attention of his direct supervisor and bank officials as “evidence of conduct suggestive of criminal activity,” thereby causing the bank to know that “plaintiff was a diligent and competent employee who would not remain silent in the face of evidence that criminal activity involving possible theft of money from the bank was ongoing” *1101(emphasis supplied), the notion that he had supplied any information of that sort to his supervisors is belied by his own statement. (See Complaint, para. 6 quoted supra.) All that he had observed and reported was that Sy was in the habit of working before and after his scheduled hours and giving up his vacation. Why this should have put the bank on notice of “ongoing criminal activity” is something of a mystery.3
Neither Sy nor appellant — “executive” employees and thus exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act — were entitled to extra compensation from the bank when they worked in excess of their regular scheduled hours. Hence, when either volunteered to work overtime or on weekends, he was contributing his services gratis to the bank — an action which would ordinarily win him gratitude from higher management.
In this context, it would seem that Sy’s behavior evinced nothing more sinister than a flair for office politics and that Vice President Dawes, perhaps annoyed at what appeared to be appellant’s persistence in voicing unfounded suspicions of a fellow executive, deemed appellant’s belated discovery of a series of coin thefts from the vault by an employee for whose supervision he was charged, as revealing neglect of his own duties, and meddlesome on matters outside his province. In other words, appellant’s discharge for the reasons given him was understandable. Significantly, the complaint does not allege that Dawes or any other superior colluded with Sy in the embezzlement for which he was indicted several months after appellant had left the bank.
Where Judge Schwelb and I differ in our analysis of the case is that he accepts as true the allegations (Complaint para. 12), that “the bank knew that the only way to stop plaintiff from continuing to make reports was to terminate him on the first available pretext” and that the bank’s motive was to keep evidence of illegal activities within the bank from disclosure, and thus prevent regulatory officials, shareholders, and depositors from learning of them.
Granted that in the posture of a motion to dismiss the allegations of fact in a complaint must be taken as true. But this does not mean that we must accept legal opinions and conclusions as true. Mirin v. Justices of Supreme Court of Nevada, 415 F.Supp. 1178, 1190 (D.Nev.1976) (where plaintiff’s allegation of conspiracy was held not to sustain complaint in face of motion to dismiss because recital of facts in complaint did not justify such conclusion). Here it is plain that the allegations quoted in the Schwelb opinion rest on conjecture and speculation. Had the motions court ruled differently and let the case go to trial, appellant would have been allowed to take the stand to prove his factual allegations, viz., his nine-year tenure of employment, his prior exemplary efficiency ratings, the explanation given for terminating him, the contrasting lenient conduct of the bank on two other occasions in dealing with supervisors whose subordinates had stolen money, and what he had said to Dawes about Sy’s working habits. I also accept this narrative of events as true. Obviously, however, he would not have been allowed to testify that his firing was a pretext or to give his opinion as to the motivation for his discharge.
The distinction between allegations that are well pleaded and those that are not is illustrated in a case somewhat similar to *1102the instant one — an appeal from an order sustaining a demurrer to a complaint alleging retaliatory discharge of an employee reporting defects in a particular product, Geary v. United States Steel Corp., 456 Pa. 171, 319 A.2d 174 (1974). In a majority opinion affirming, Justice Pomeroy of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court observed:
We see no basis for inferring that Geary’s discharge was a spiteful retaliatory gesture designed to punish him for noticing and calling attention to the asserted defect in the company’s product. This is particularly true in view of the fact that the product was withdrawn from the market. It does not follow that, because Geary’s motives were good, the company’s motives in discharging him were bad. In scrutinizing the complaint we are not required to put aside our common sense or attribute to parties a perversity which the facts alleged do not warrant.
Id. 319 A.2d at 180 n. 15.
In my view this observation is a fortiori, the proper guideline for the disposition of this appeal. The case before us is anything but a “suitable vehicle” for en banc consideration.
ORDER
PER CURIAM
On consideration of appellant’s petition for rehearing en banc, the opposition and the reply thereto, and the motion of Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association for leave to file brief as amicus curiae in support of the petition, the lodged brief, the opposition and the reply thereto, it is
ORDERED that the motion for leave to file brief is granted and the Clerk is directed to file the lodged brief of amicus curiae; and it appearing that the majority of the judges of this court has voted to grant the petition for rehearing en banc, it is
FURTHER ORDERED that the appellant’s petition for rehearing en banc is granted and that the opinion and judgment of February 4, 1992, are hereby vacated. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that the Clerk shall schedule this matter for argument before the court sitting en banc on Thursday, May 7, 1992, at 9:30 a.m. Counsel are hereby directed to provide ten copies of the briefs heretofore filed to the Clerk on or before April 24, 1992.

. This is also not a case where an employee had drawn the attention of the bank to a fiduciary who was living extravagantly beyond his means, fraternizing with gamblers and other shady characters, being dunned by creditors or engaging in other suspicious conduct which might have alerted management to some likelihood of embezzlement.

. The complaint also mentions another incident (para. 6(a)). Upon arriving one morning at 7:00, his usual starting time, appellant found his co-manager sitting in the lobby of the main office. She informed him she had not been inside. As appellant then entered the main office, he discovered that the door alarm had been turned off. When he asked Sy, Dawes and three other bank officials whether any of them had previously entered and shut off the alarm, he received negative answers, and was then told by *1101Dawes and a security officer that as nothing was missing, he need not worry.
Except as an example of appellant’s diligence in reporting "irregularities which could give rise to a theft of money," this allegation on its face is meaningless. He does not allege that any of his superiors were annoyed by his questions or that among the six persons who might have closed the alarm mechanism, Sy was the most logical suspect.

. In order to show that his suspicions were not completely groundless, the complaint avers that six months after appellant’s termination, Sy was indicted for embezzlement and pleaded guilty. Although the indictment and the admissions of fact required by the court in accepting the guilty plea are matters of public record, the complaint does not disclose time or circumstances which might have linked the commission of the crime to some of the events reported as indicative of a conspiracy by management to protect embezzlers. It is difficult to believe that if any counts in the indictment or bill of particulars had involved Dawes as a participant, appellant would have failed to mention this in his complaint.