Land v. Delta Air Lines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 26 October 1973
• Docket Number: No. 48532,No. 2,48532,2
• Citation: Land v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 130 Ga.App. 231, 203 S.E.2d 316 (Ga. App. 1973)
• Parties: , 115 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 4831 Robert F. LAND, Jr. v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 316

203 S.E.2d 316

130 Ga.App. 231, 115 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 4831

Robert F. LAND, Jr. v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC.

No. 48532.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Oct. 26, 1973.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 14, 1973.

Grace W. Thomas, Atlanta, for appellant.

Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers, Guerry R. Moore, Atlanta, for appellee.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court

HALL, Presiding Judge.

R. F. Land, Jr., formerly employed by appellee Delta Air Lines, Inc. (hereinafter, 'Delta') as a freight service agent at a salary of $156 per week, paid twice monthly, brought a $1 million damage suit against Delta for wrongful discharge alleging that Delta had breached an oral contract with him for his employment for the term of his natural life or until his retirement. Land appeals from the trial court's grant of summary judgment for Delta on grounds that no such lifetime employment contract had been made adequately to appear.

Though the record reflects that Land's incapacity to work, which resulted in his discharge, stemmed from an on-the-job injury, Land had been awarded some 400 weeks of compensation under the Georgia Workmen's Compensation Act up to $18,000 or until an improvement in his condition occurred. It is Land's position that no workmen's compensation question is involved in this appeal.

The controlling statute is Code § 66-101: 'Term of employment.-That wages are payable at a stipulated period raises the presumption that the hiring is for such period; but if anything in the contract shall show that the hiring was for a longer term, the mere reservation of wages for a lesser time will not control. An indefinite hiring may be terminated at will by either party.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In absence of a controlling contract between the parties, employment for an indefinite period-a 'permanent job'-is terminable at the will of either party, and a discharge in such circumstances affords no cause of action for breach of contract. Lambert v. Georgia Power Co., 181 Ga. 624, 183 S.E. 814; Elliott v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 116 Ga.App. 36, 156 S.E.2d 656; Snyder v. Savannah Union Station Co., 85 Ga.App. 851, 70 S.E.2d 382; Smith v. Chicopee Manufacturing Corp., 56 Ga.App. 294, 192 S.E. 481.

Land alleges in his unsworn amended complaint that Delta lured him away from the armed services, where he had 'lifetime' employment, and offered him 'lifetime' employment with Delta, which meant he had a right to stay until death or retirement. However, in his answers to interrogatories, he states only that he 'quit the Air Force in order to accept a permanent job with Delta Air Lines.' He states in answer to a Delta interrogatory that 'I assumed the date of my employment was to have continued until I retired, which would have been at age 65. All orientation classes stress the fact that employment...