Hill v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 53582
| Decision Date | 05 July 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 53582,No. 1,53582,1 |
| Citation | 237 S.E.2d 597,143 Ga.App. 103 |
| Parties | Valerie B. HILL v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Paul R. Koehler, Atlanta, for appellant.
Robert S. Harkey, Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy, Jerry B. Blackstock, James M. Griffin, Atlanta, for appellee.
Hill, the appellant, sued Delta for breach of an oral employment contract, for breach of an orally modified, written employment contract, for conspiring with others to interfere with her contractual rights, and for violating the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. Hill has abandoned her oral contract claim and alleges on appeal that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment against her as to her other claims because questions of fact remained as to them and because the court failed to consider her two motions to enforce discovery and her motion to strike part of the written contract before granting summary judgment. Finding no error, we affirm.
Hill's written contract with Delta was for an indefinite period of employment and specifically stated that her employment was subject to termination "at any time without notice." Delta discharged Hill from her position as flight attendant because she deliberately protected her husband, who was traveling on a non-revenue pass, from removal from an overflow flight, and, in his stead, a fare-paying passenger had to disembark.
1. Appellee's motion to dismiss the appeal is denied. In Gilman Paper Co. v. James, 235 Ga. 348, 219 S.E.2d 447, the Supreme Court expressly disapproved their holding in McDonald v. Rogers, 229 Ga. 369, 191 S.E.2d 844, which suggested that the proper procedure for acquiring review of the trial court's refusal to dismiss an appeal was to file a motion to dismiss in the appellate court. Appellee has failed to follow the Gilman Paper Co. mandate that it file an appeal from the trial court's denial of the motion to dismiss.
2. Hill contends that before granting Delta's motion for summary judgment the trial court first should have considered her two motions to compel discovery and her motion to strike. Since Hill did not bring this matter to the trial court's attention at the hearing on Delta's motion for summary judgment, she waived any objection, and she cannot complain for the first time on appeal.
3. Hill contends that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment against her on her claims that Delta breached an orally modified, written employment contract and that Delta conspired with others to interfere with her rights under that contract. Hill alleged that the written contract was modified to include Delta's "open door policy" as a provision thereof. She further alleged that Delta breached the contract, as modified, by dismissing her without cause and by failing to permit her to have sufficient appeal of the decision to terminate. However, the alleged modification would not change the essential nature of the written employment contract. The written contract, signed by Hill, was of indefinite duration and therefore was terminable "at will by either party." Code § 66-101. Moreover, the contract itself explicitly provided that Delta could terminate her "at any time." Under these circumstances, as a matter of law, Delta's decision to terminate was not in breach of contract. ...
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...143 Ga.App. 893, 240 S.E.2d 155 (1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 931, 98 S.Ct. 1506, 55 L.Ed.2d 528 (1978); Hill v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 143 Ga.App. 103, 237 S.E.2d 597 (1977); Ely v. Stratoflex, Inc., 132 Ga.App. 569, 208 S.E.2d 583 (1974). In Texas, the at will rule flows from common law ......
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...Jones at will and cannot be held liable for a conspiracy to do that which they legally were entitled to do. Hill v. Delta Air Lines, 143 Ga.App. 103, 104, 237 S.E.2d 597 (1977); Ga. Power Co. v. Busbin, supra, 242 Ga. at 614, 250 S.E.2d 442. Dismissal of Georgia Power by the trial court was......
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..."conspire to do that which they legally were entitled to do." Busbin, supra, 250 S.E.2d at 444. See also Hill v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 143 Ga.App. 103, 237 S.E.2d 597 (1977); McElroy v. Wilson, 143 Ga.App. 893, 240 S.E.2d 155 (1977). Plaintiff challenges the dismissal of the individual def......
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Lively v. Garnick, 62236
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