North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Raises Possibility of New Exception to Employment At-Will Doctrine

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05.17.2004

Steven A. Rowe

Susanna Knutson Gibbons

North Carolina has long adhered to the employment at-will doctrine, which provides that an employer or an employee may terminate the employment relationship at any time for any lawful reason or for no reason at all. One exception to this general rule is that an employee may not be terminated for a reason that violates the public policy of North Carolina. Although there have been numerous attempts by employees to convince courts to craft additional exceptions to the at-will doctrine or to broaden the public policy exception, courts traditionally have been reluctant to do so and have limited the types of cases that fall within the public policy exception. The wrongful discharge claim has been recognized in three situations: (1) when an employee is fired for refusing to violate the law at the employer’s request; (2) when the employee is fired for engaging in a legally protected activity; and (3) when the termination is inherently contrary to a public policy stated in the General Statutes.

The recent case of Imes vs. Asheville illustrates the efforts to expand the concept that employers cannot lawfully terminate employees for a reason that violates public policy. The plaintiff in the Imes case was shot by his spouse, and shortly thereafter, terminated from work. He claimed that his supervisor told him he was being fired because he was a victim of domestic abuse. In his lawsuit, he sued for lost wages, contending that terminating an employee for such a reason was against the public policy of the state because the General Assembly has recognized that domestic abuse is a serious social problem. The Court of Appeals rejected this claim, holding that the employee "has failed to identify any specified North Carolina public policy that was violated by Defendants in terminating his employment." The Court noted that none of our state statutes relating to domestic abuse provide any sort of security from termination of employment for victims.

Interestingly, one judge dissented, based upon her conviction that two statutes indirectly create a public policy "preventing the effects of domestic violence from entering the workplace." The statutes relied on by the dissent were those (1) allowing persons who lose employment due to domestic violence to obtain unemployment benefits, and (2) authorizing injunctions prohibiting perpetrators of domestic violence from entering the workplace. The employer’s alleged conduct did not violate either of these statutes, nor did the employer require the employee to violate these statutes. Thus, the dissent would have expanded the wrongful discharge claim by finding a violation of "public policy" by implication.

This decision serves as a reminder of the risk involved in terminating employees for reasons unrelated to job performance. Terminated employees frequently attempt to broaden the public policy exception to the employment at will doctrine, and if one more judge had agreed with the dissenting judge in Imes, the employer in that case would have been facing a costly wrongful termination trial. To minimize this exposure, employers should carefully analyze each adverse employment action it takes, particularly termination, and should be certain that it can support each adverse action with objective evidence of a business reason, such as poor performance. In addition, employers should be careful not to make stray comments about an employee that could be interpreted as an unlawful motive for an employment action.

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05.17.2004