Court Opinion

ID: 9550023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:27:54.622438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:12.198978
License: Public Domain

BUSTAMANTE, Judge, dissenting. The majority finds against the Plaintiff on the sole basis that the supervisor who carried out his termination was not personally aware of Plaintiffs claim that driving more that day would violate state hours-in-service regulations. The majority refuses to charge the employer I & W with receipt or notice of the message assertedly given to I & W’s agent, Artesia Answering Service (the Answering Service). In reaching its decision, the majority fails to adequately address the nature of the agency relationship between I & W and the Answering Service, and imposes an unnecessary element of causal proof in public policy termination cases. GENERAL RULE OF AGENCY The general rule is that “the liability of a principal is affected by the knowledge of an agent concerning a matter ... upon which it is his duty to give the principal information.” Restatement (Second) of Agency § 272 (1957). Similarly, “notification given to an agent is notice to the principal if it is given: (a) to an agent authorized to receive it; (b) to an agent apparently authorized to receive it; (e) to an agent authorized to conduct a transaction, with respect to matters connected with it as to which notice is usually given to such an agent____” id § 268. The majority’s refusal to apply these general rules to the benefit of Plaintiff here must flow from some characteristic of the agency relationship between I & W and the Answering Service or from the nature of the tort Plaintiff relies upon. The majority does not explore the agency relationship in any detail. As described, the agency relationship fits within the general rules quoted above. The record reveals that I & W used the Answering Service to convey information to its drivers outside their normal working hours. For example, the call ordering Plaintiff back to work was placed at approximately 10:30 p.m. It is reasonable to presume that I & W relied on the Answering Service to report back on its conversations with its drivers. It is also reasonable to presume that the drivers relied on the Answering Service to report their responses to I & W’s requests to report to work. It is obvious that, as an intermediary, the Answering Service had a duty to accurately convey information in both directions. Both I & W and the drivers had the right to rely on the Answering Service’s actual or apparent authority to receive and convey information accurately. There is no indication that the Answering Service’s interests were in any way adverse to I & W. See id. § 275. The drivers’ responses to requests to return to work were part of the subject matter of the agency, and the Answering Service had a clear duty to give the principal accurate information. See id. §§ 268, 275. The drivers had the right to rely on the Answering Service’s apparent authority to receive information on behalf of I & W. In a situation in which I & W has consciously chosen to receive information through an agent of its selection, it is wholly proper to treat information given to the agent as given to the principal I & W. Refusing to do so foils the drivers’ reasonable expectations; expectations created by I & W when it set up the message service for its own benefit. In this sense, the Plaintiffs case is different from those relied upon by the majority in which notice was given to persons who were not authorized to receive the information or who had no duty to convey the information to anyone else. Cf. Corley v. Jackson Police Dep’t, 639 F.2d 1296 (5th Cir.1981) (court refused to impute city attorney’s knowledge that plaintiffs had filed a discrimination lawsuit to police chief who fired plaintiffs); Featherson v. Montgomery County Pub. Sch., 739 F.Supp. 1021 (D.Md.1990) (mem.) (court refused to impute knowledge of school district employees who knew plaintiff had filed EEO Act claims to school district committee members who did not promote plaintiff). The cases cited in the penultimate paragraph of the opinion are similarly distinguishable. In Woodmont, Inc. v. Daniels, 274 F.2d 132 (10th Cir.1959), cert. denied, 362 U.S. 968, 80 S.Ct. 955, 4 L.Ed.2d 900 (1960), the cause of action was for fraud in execution of a contract. Id. at 134. The court held that it would not impute bad faith to the board of directors of the defendant company when there was no evidence that those directors actually knew the plaintiff relied on misrepresentations. Id. at 137. However, the court also held that because two company employees who negotiated the contract did know about both the reliance and the misrepresentations (although the representations had originally been made in good faith by other employees who did not know their representations were false), “the information and acts of [the negotiating employees] were the information and acts of the companies whom they represented.” Id. at 138. Thus, the court imposed liability on the company for fraud. In Sisk v. McPartland, 267 Or. 116, 515 P.2d 179 (1973), the defendant was found liable by a default judgment imposed as a sanction for “willfully” failing to appear at a deposition. The attorney representing the defendant had not been able to find the defendant to tell her about the deposition. The trial court held that service of the notice of deposition on the attorney was sufficient. Id. at 180. On appeal, the court held that a party had to actually receive notice of her deposition before it could find that the party had acted “willfully,” or with volition in failing to appear. Id. at 181. Clearly, both of these cases are distinguishable. Finally, with regard to the nature of the agency, I believe the majority’s analysis has been unduly influenced by the fact that the agent here was an independent contractor and not an employee. I find it difficult to believe that the majority would reach the same result if the same conversations reported in the record had occurred between Plaintiff and an in-house dispatcher. The analysis here would do better to follow the pattern of eases such as Kimbro v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 889 F.2d 869 (9th Cir.1989), in which the court held the employer liable under state handicap discrimination law despite the contention that management personnel who made the decision to terminate employee were not personally aware that employee’s absences from work were due to medical condition for which reasonable accommodation was required. Affirmance of dismissal of the ERISA retaliation claim was based solely on lack of evidence, not connected in any way on the issue of imputation of knowledge. NATURE OF THE CAUSE OF ACTION The majority’s refusal to charge I & W with receipt of the information assertedly conveyed by Plaintiff to the Answering Service is couched in terms of the causal connection required between the employee’s act (or refusal to act) in service of a clear public policy and the employer’s decision to terminate. Put colloquially, the majority’s position is: How can an employer retaliate if it is not personally aware of the employee’s motivation? Framed this way, the question would seem to answer itself. In my view, however, the majority’s treatment of the tort is unduly narrow. The majority analyzes the cause of action from the point of view of the employer, emphasizing the need for proof of both the employer’s and the employee’s motivation. The analysis carries with it the implicit view that the employer must be found to have acted with a malevolent purpose or evil intent, or with a guilty state of mind. This approach ignores the purpose of the cause of action: that is, to encourage employees and employers to act in accordance with and in furtherance of clear public policy objectives. Chavez v. Manville Prod. Corp., 108 N.M. 643, 777 P.2d 371 (1989). The majority’s underlying assumption that the cause of action requires a malevolent motive or evil state of mind is reflected in the citation to the Restatement (Second) of Agency § 268 cmt. d and § 275 cmt. b and the denomination of the tort as “intentional.” However, there is nothing in the New Mexico or foreign eases describing the public policy exception to at-will employment that supports any assertion that the tort contemplates any particular state of mind requirement. In particular, there is no indication in the case law that malice, evil intent or even personal animosity are necessary elements of the cause of action. The point is important to make because the types of tort cited as examples in the Restatement in which a state of mind is important include causes of action for fraud, deceit and malicious prosecution. See id. The motive and subjective knowledge of the person charged with torts such as these are clearly central to the claims. The same is not true with regard to the tort of “retaliatory discharge.” Under this cause of action, a plaintiff in New Mexico must demonstrate he acted or refused to act in furtherance of a clear public policy and that he was terminated or otherwise adversely affected because of his acts. Chavez, 108 N.M. at 647, 777 P.2d at 375. “The linchpin of a cause of action for retaliatory discharge is whether by discharging the complaining employee the employer violated a ‘clear mandate of public policy.’ ” Shovelin v. Central N.M. Elec. Coop., Inc., 115 N.M. 293, 303, 850 P.2d 996, 1006 (1993). Thus, New Mexico emphasizes the policy goals of the tort, not the ill-motives or bad faith of the employer. In this regard, New Mexico has not based its public policy tort on the same theoretical grounds as cases such as Cloutier v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 121 N.H. 915, 436 A.2d 1140 (1981). See Monge v. Beebe Rubber Co., 114 N.H. 130, 316 A.2d 549 (1974) (basing New Hampshire’s cause of action on the theory of breach of the requirement of good faith and fair dealing implicit within the employment contract). Rather, New Mexico has based its public policy exception on the positive grounds of encouraging right conduct and creating a limited measure of job security for at-will employees, and has followed the theoretical approach of eases such as Palmateer v. International Harvester Co., 85 Ill.2d 124, 52 Ill.Dec. 13, 421 N.E.2d 876 (1981). See Vigil v. Arzola, 102 N.M. 682, 688-89, 699 P.2d 613 (Ct.App.1983), overruled in part on other grounds, 101 N.M. 687, 687 P.2d 1038 (1984), modified by Chavez v. Manville Prod. Corp., 108 N.M. 643, 777 P.2d 371 (1989). The clearest statement that neither malice nor bad faith are necessary elements of the tort is found in Dixon Distributing Co. v. Hanover Insurance Co., 161 Ill.2d 433, 204 Ill.Dec. 171, 641 N.E.2d 395 (1994). I believe the discussion in Dixon is more in accord with New Mexico’s approach to the tort than is the majority view. In addition, it is not necessary to find a specific intent on the part of the employer to contravene public policy. Liability could be found even though the employer held a good faith belief that its conduct was in accord with public policy requirements. For example, I & W has asserted that it is not subject to the hours-in-serviee regulations relied upon by Plaintiff. I assume that belief is held in good faith by I & W management. That good-faith belief, however, would not protect I & W from enforcement actions by an administrative agency and it should not protect it from civil liability in the current ease. Focusing on the malicious intent of the employer rather than on the mischief caused by the termination weakens the ameliorative aspects of the tort. Absent a special state of mind requirement for the tort, there is no reason why the proximate cause connection between the employee’s act and the firing cannot be inferred from the totality of the circumstances, including information imparted to an agent specifically hired to receive information pertinent to the decision to fire. To require more is analogous to the heightened requirement for proof of proximate cause this Court attempted to impose in Tafoya v. Seay Bros. Corp., No. 14,998, slip op. (Ct.App., Nov. 2, 1993), rev’d 119 N.M. 350, 890 P.2d 803 (1995). The majority comes dangerously close to requiring the employee to produce evidence that he: (1) conveyed an explanation of the employee’s good motive (2) directly to the person who later terminates him in order to connect the employee’s act with the relevant public policy and put the employer on explicit notice that action against the employee will contravene the public policy. In my view, this amounts to a reimposition of the “clear and convincing” evidentiary standard that was rejected in Chavez. See 108 N.M. at 649, 777 P.2d at 377. New Mexico cases simply do not require that kind of showing from plaintiffs, in particular on motion for summary judgment. To do so would also impose an unprecedented duty on the part of the employee to explain to the employer its duty under the law and its obligation not to commit the tort. In this sense, the majority goes beyond even the Colorado Supreme Court’s holding in Martin Marietta v. Lorenz, 823 P.2d 100 (Colo.1992) (en banc), in which the court required, as part of plaintiffs prima facie case, a showing that the employer was aware, or reasonably should have been aware, that the employee’s refusal to perform the employer’s directive was based on the employee’s reasonable belief that the directive was illegal, contrary to clear statutory policy, or otherwise violative of the employee’s rights or privileges as a worker.1 The Colorado court at least allowed proof of this element on the basis that the employer “should have been aware” of the employee’s motives. The majority here requires actual, subjective knowledge by the employer. Finally, the majority unfairly faults Plaintiff for not providing “direct legal authority” in support of his argument that information given the Answering Service should be treated as given to I & W. Plaintiff did cite to the Restatement (Second) of Agency, Sections 268 and 275. The courts of New Mexico have been known to cite to the Restatement as the sole authority in support of their decisions. See, e.g., Broome v. Byrd, 113 N.M. 38, 41, 822 P.2d 677, 679 (Ct.App.1991); Gonzales v. Southwest Sec. & Protection Agency, 100 N.M. 54, 56, 665 P.2d 810, 812 (Ct.App.1983). Application of the Restatement in this context is subject to reasonable discussion and disagreement. Reliance by the parties on the Restatement should not be dismissed so lightly, particularly, in light of the unusual factual circumstances presented here. Part of the Plaintiffs and the Court’s difficulty in locating authority on point lies with the fact pattern we face. It is in part the novelty of the fact pattern that leads the majority to rely on non-employment cases to support its position. I do not quarrel with the correctness of those eases in their particular context, but they exhibit limited utility in analyzing the case before us. For example, a requirement of knowledge for purposes of a retaliation claim under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is reasonable because that claim was statutorily created to protect persons asserting their rights under that particular statute. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a); Corley, 639 F.2d at 1300; Talley v. United States Postal Serv., 720 F.2d 505, 508 (8th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 952, 104 S.Ct. 2155, 80 L.Ed.2d 541 (1984). Even in these instances, however, it is difficult to believe that notice given to an employee authorized to receive information of that kind and under a duty to convey the information to management would not be imputed to the employer as a whole. See Kimbro, 889 F.2d at 876. With the exception of Hickman v. May Dep’t Stores, 887 S.W.2d 628 (Mo.Ct.App.1994), the other authority cited by the majority is distinguishable because in those cases the employee failed to provide evidence that the employer was even aware that the employee engaged in the conduct that later served as the basis for the employee’s claim of retaliation. Cf. Parham v. Carrier Corp., 9 F.3d 383 (5th Cir.1993) (no evidence that employer knew employee had filed a worker’s compensation claim before termination decision made); Talley, 720 F.2d at 508 (evidence was undisputed that supervisor who fired employee didn’t know that employee had previously been employed by the postal service and had filed discrimination claims); Carter v. Bennett, 651 F.Supp. 1299, 1301 (D.D.C.1987) (no evidence employer knew employee had filed an EEO complaint before terminated); Beckman v. Freeman United Coal Mining Co., 123 Ill.2d 281, 122 Ill.Dec. 805, 527 N.E.2d 303 (1988) (no evidence employer knew of employee’s intent to file worker’s compensation claim before termination). In contrast, in this case I & W knew that Plaintiff refused to come to work and terminated him for that reason. The issue is whether Plaintiffs conduct was insubordination or protected conduct. That issue is properly for the jury. Hickman is distinguished because the applicable Missouri statute requires that an employee prove an exclusive causal relationship between filing a worker’s compensation claim and the discharge. Also, the court required direct evidence of the discharging supervisor’s knowledge that the claim was filed. In New Mexico, our Supreme Court has disavowed the direct evidence requirement in retaliatory discharge cases. See Chavez, 108 N.M. at 648, 777 P.2d at 376 (stating “it is not to be expected in cases of this type that a plaintiff would necessarily discover documentary or other direct evidence in support of his claim”). Reich v. Hoy Shoe, Co., 32 F.3d 361 (8th Cir.1994), on balance supports my view in that it reasserts the desirability of allowing the fact finder to decide if the employer acted in response to the OSHA complaint, even in the absence of direct evidence whether the employer knew which employee “blew the whistle” to OSHA. The Reich court emphasized the propriety of allowing the fact finder to determine the ultimate issues of protected conduct and motivation after a full evidentiary hearing rather than by summary judgment. Ortega v. IBP, Inc., 255 Kan. 513, 874 P.2d 1188 (1994), is inapposite because the direct issue in the case was the standard of proof to be required in retaliatory discharge cases in Kansas. In that regard, the Kansas Supreme Court decided that the standard of proof would be “by a preponderance of the evidence, but the evidence must be clear and convincing in nature.” Id. at 1198. In so doing, the Kansas court rejected the New Mexico Supreme Court’s approach to the issue articulated in Chavez, thus implicitly rejecting New Mexico’s approach to the tort entirely. It is unusual to see a termination such as this occurring immediately after one incident and with no direct contact between employer and employee. It is even more unusual to see a non-employee agent used first as a go-between and then as a shield against liability. It is unfortunate the majority uses this difficult fact pattern to impose significant new requirements and limitations on plaintiffs who rely on the public policy exception to the at-will doctrine. My suggested approach is better gauged to achieve the normative ends of the cause of action. I would treat information given to I & W’s agent as being given to I & W for all purposes connected to this case, and I would allow a jury to infer that I & W discharged Plaintiff because he refused to violate the hours-in-serviee requirements based on (1) the employer’s knowledge of those requirements, (2) its knowledge that Plaintiff had already worked 13/6 hours that day, and (3) its termination of Plaintiffs employment upon Plaintiffs refusal to perform the requested act as explained to an agent of the employer’s choosing, which agent had a duty to convey information from the employee to the employer.  . The imposition of this element has been roundly criticized, in particular in a law review article cited by the majority. Michael D. Wulfsohn, Comment, Martin Marietta v. Lorenz: Palpable Public Policy and the Superfluous Sixth Element, 70 Denv.U.L.Rev. 589 (1993).