Spainhouer v. Western Elec. Co., Inc.
| Decision Date | 15 April 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. B-9176,B-9176 |
| Citation | 615 S.W.2d 190 |
| Parties | 93 Lab.Cas. P 55,336 Anna SPAINHOUER, Petitioner, v. WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY, INC., Respondent. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Holley & Holley, Stephen L. Holley, Dallas, for petitioner.
Strasburger & Price, Royal H. Brin, Jr., Sheree Lynn McCall and Patrick F. McGowan, Dallas, for respondent.
Our opinion of March 11, 1981, is withdrawn and this opinion is substituted in its stead and the parties are given 15 days within which to file an Amended Motion for Rehearing.
This is a suit for wrongful termination of employment. The trial court granted summary judgment for respondent and the court of civil appeals affirmed. 592 S.W.2d 662. We reverse and remand.
Petitioner, Anna Spainhouer, was employed by respondent, Western Electric Company, Inc., and was injured in the course of her employment. She claimed worker's compensation benefits and after settling her claim she was ordered to report to work but refused to do so on the ground that she had not sufficiently recovered from her injuries. She was discharged for failure to report. She was a member of the Communications Workers of America which had a collective bargaining agreement with respondent. Petitioner complained to her union that she had been wrongfully discharged and the union commenced a grievance procedure with respondent pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement. As set out in the collective bargaining agreement, the grievance procedure consists of five steps, followed by binding arbitration at the option of either party. After completion of the fifth step the local union submitted the file to the district office of the international union without recommendation as to whether arbitration should be invoked. The district office declined to ask for arbitration. Upon being informed of this decision the petitioner filed suit for wrongful termination pursuant to Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 8307c, which provides:
Section 1. No person may discharge or in any other manner discriminate against any employee because the employee has in good faith filed a claim, hired a lawyer to represent him in a claim, instituted, or caused to be instituted, in good faith, any proceeding under the Texas Workmen's Compensation Act, or has testified or is about to testify in any such proceeding.
The summary judgment evidence consisted of affidavits from two union representatives who stated that they had instituted a grievance procedure under Articles 22 and 29 of the collective bargaining agreement. Further, they stated that after completing the grievance procedure as set out in Article 10 of the agreement the district office of the international union declined to pursue the matter to arbitration. There was also an affidavit from petitioner in opposition to the motion for summary judgment, stating that she had requested the union to file a grievance for wrongful termination. The trial judge rendered a summary judgment which did not recite any findings of fact or conclusions of law. However, in a letter to each of the attorneys, a copy of which is in the record before us, the trial court set out its reason for the summary judgment, stating that it found Thompson v. Monsanto Co., 559 S.W.2d 873 (Tex.Civ.App. Houston (14th Dist.) 1977, no writ) to control this case. We granted the application for writ of error in this case based on petitioner's point that the case is controlled by our recent decision in Carnation Company v. Borner, 610 S.W.2d 450 (Tex.1980). In Borner, we distinguished Thompson v. Monsanto Co., pointing out that in Monsanto the employee had pursued his rights under the collective bargaining agreement to final...
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...article 8307c at any time before he has completely exhausted grievance procedures pursuant to the agreement. Spainhouer v. Western Elec. Co., 615 S.W.2d 190, 191 (Tex.1981); Carnation Co. v. Borner, 610 S.W.2d 450, 453 (Tex.1980); Bonner v. Fleming Companies, 734 S.W.2d 764, 765 (Tex.App. —......
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