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This month the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division III issued a ruling in Becker v. Community Health Systems, Inc. that expands protections in a wrongful termination action based on violation of a public policy.

In Becker, the Plaintiff, a former chief financial officer for Community Health Systems, Inc. (“CHS”), alleged that while CHS initially represented that it would have a $4 million operating loss, Becker calculated a projected $12 million operating loss in 2012. When CHS requested Becker revise his projection prior to submitting it to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), Becker refused. CHS placed Becker on a performance improvement plan and conditioned his continued employment on revising the loss projection. Becker documented his concern with the CHS calculation and advised the company that unless it remedied its misconduct he would be forced to resign. CHS accepted Becker’s notice as a resignation. 

Becker sued in superior court for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy (he also filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration).  After the trial court denied CHS’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under CR 12(b)(6), CHS sought discretionary review with the Court of Appeals.Continue Reading Washington Court of Appeals Expands “Jeopardy” Element of Claim for Wrongful Discharge in Violation of Public Policy

Is the Oregon Court of Appeals back in the wrongful-discharge business? It’s a fair question to ask after the court’s decision last week in Lucas v. Lake County, –Or. App.– (2012).  Reversing the trial court’s motion to dismiss, the court held that a sheriff’s deputy who served as a correctional officer could sue for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy based on his allegation that he’d been fired for demanding that the sheriff implement a training program regarding sexual relations with inmates, and for concluding that another sheriff’s deputy had traded contraband for sex with an inmate.  

What Is An "Important" Public Duty?

Wrongful discharge has had an eventful history in the Oregon courts.  Broadly speaking, in a wrongful discharge claim an employee alleges that the employer terminated him for a reason that is inconsistent with an important public policy.  The key (and usually thorny) legal issue is identifying the public policy and weighing whether it is sufficiently important to protect an employee from being fired.  The Oregon courts have deemed an employee’s need to be absent from work to serve on a jury (Nees v. Hocks, 272 Or. 210 (1975)) and an employee’s internal protest that a fire department covered up evidence of a safety violation (Love v. Polk County Fire Dist., 209 Or. App. 474 (2006)) important enough to qualify.  On the other hand, a doctor’s disagreement with his medical group’s treatment recommendations (Eusterman v. Northwest Permanente P.C., 204 Or. App. 224 (2006)) and private security guards’ lawful arrest of drunken concertgoers (Babick v. Oregon Arena Corp., 333 Or. 401 (2002)) didn’t make the cut.

Continue Reading Oregon Court of Appeals Upholds Wrongful Discharge Claim By Whistleblowing Prison Guard

Martha walks into your office and says she wants to fire her assistant, Roy, because he keeps sending emails with typos and it is embarrassing. Martha says, “We are at-will and I want him gone by the end of the day.”  Like most others, Alaska is an “employment-at-will” state, which means that the employee and employer…

Is a Washington employer prohibited from terminating an at-will employee because she took leave from work to protect herself from domestic violence?  Yes, according to last week’s opinion from the Washington Supreme Court in Danny v. Laidlaw Services. 

In Danny, the plaintiff sued her former employer in federal court, alleging she was terminated for…