Vannerson v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 66416

• Decision Date: 26 September 1989
• Docket Number: No. 66416,66416
• Citation: 784 P.2d 1053,1989 OK 125
• Parties: 116 Lab.Cas. P 56,395, 58 Ed. Law Rep. 307, 4 IER Cases 1467, 1989 OK 125 Stanley VANNERSON, Appellee, v. The BOARD OF REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, a body corporate; William Banowsky, President; Lewis Findley, Coordinator of Housing; and Morris B. Kinder, Director of The Physical Plant, Appellants.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 1053

784 P.2d 1053

116 Lab.Cas. P 56,395, 58 Ed. Law Rep.

307, 4 IER Cases 1467,

1989 OK 125

Stanley VANNERSON, Appellee, v. The BOARD OF REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, a body corporate; William Banowsky, President; Lewis Findley Coordinator of Housing; and Morris B. Kinder, Director of The Physical Plant, Appellants.

No. 66416.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Sept. 26, 1989.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 9, 1990.

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OKLAHOMA CITY DIVISIONS

District Court, Cleveland County; Preston Trimble, District Judge.

Defendants appeal jury verdict in favor of plaintiff on claim of wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. The Court of Appeals reversed. Certiorari has been previously granted. The opinion of the Court of Appeals is vacated, the judgment of the trial court is reversed and the case remanded with directions as to retrial.

Glen Rawdon, Norman and Randal D. Morley, Tulsa, for plaintiff/appellee.

Stanley M. Ward, Kurt F. Ockershauser, Susan Gail Seamans, and Lawrence E. Naifeh, Norman, and Robert D. Looney, Sr., Oklahoma City, for defendants/appellants.

SUMMERS, Justice.

The defendants appeal from a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff/employee on theories of breach of contract and wrongful termination in violation of public policy. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court based upon this court's decision in Hinson v. Cameron, 742 P.2d 549 (Okla.1987), concluding that Hinson did not recognize a public policy exception to the employee-at-will doctrine.

We previously granted certiorari to examine the case in light of our more recent decision in Burk v. K-Mart Corp., 770 P.2d 24 (Okla.1989), which recognizes a cause of action in tort for wrongful discharge "in which the discharge is contrary to a clear mandate of public policy as articulated by constitutional, statutory or decisional law." Burk, at 28. Because much of the evidence submitted to the jury and relied upon by Plaintiff for recovery was based on an occurrence not involving any breach of public policy we reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

Plaintiff worked for the University of Oklahoma as a receiving and warehouse clerk, and as part of his responsibilities performed certain tasks related to inventory of appliances and furniture. In the course of his employment he reported discrepancies in inventory to his supervisor, who checked on the report and directed another employee to report back to Vannerson. Vannerson was dissatisfied with this action, became belligerent, and argued with his supervisor regarding the inventories in front of other employees, using highly abusive language. Although told to remain on the job, Vannerson immediately thereafter left and went to Internal Auditing to report the inventory discrepancies to that office. Later that day when asked by his superiors why he had disobeyed the order, he refused to answer, saying "I just can't say anything about it off the record. I don't have a court reporter or tape recorder with me".

The following day, Vannerson was terminated, according to his supervisor, for abusive and belligerent language, disobedience of a direct order, and refusal to answer any questions regarding his behavior. He followed the proper internal grievance procedure, and the University upheld his termination. He then filed suit alleging breach of contract and wrongful termination. Vannerson did not allege that any of the property had been stolen, but testified that "most likely" the installers "weren't pencil pushers", and that the problem was a record keeping error.

Vannerson also pleaded and offered proof in support of another incident occuring several months earlier. This consisted of his having seen the transfer of two boxes of unopened floor tiles from a University employee to a non-employee truck driver. Vannerson reported the incident to a supervisor and was dissatisfied with the University's response that the boxes were just "trash". He then prepared a letter to his state representative, which he did not send but showed to his supervisor, advising them he didn't accept their resolution of the matter. Ultimately the physical plant director turned the matter over to the police, resulting in a police determination that the transferring employee had illegally received $30.00 for the two boxes. As a result the transferring employee resigned his job. Plaintiff claimed his actions in this matter were also a basis for his wrongful discharge.

At trial the court instructed the jury that it must return a verdict in plaintiff's favor if he proved that the conduct for which he was terminated was protected by the public policy of the State of Oklahoma encouraging "whistle-blowing", and that he would not have been terminated but for engaging in such protected conduct. Although the defendants demurred to the evidence all of the above mentioned evidence was submitted to the jury, which returned a plaintiff's verdict of $524.00.

The trial court, of course, did not have the benefit of Burk, supra, which limits the cause of action for wrongful dismissal to dismissals which violate public policy. We discussed employee public policy claims in Hinson v. Cameron, 742 P.2d 549 (Okl.1987). Therein we stated:

"An at-will employee's discharge has been declared to be actionable on several public policy grounds. Claims recognized under this rubric are those by employees dismissed for (a) refusing to participate in an illegal activity; (b) performing an important public obligation; (c) exercising a legal right or interest; (d) exposing some wrongdoing by the employer; and (e) performing an act that public policy would encourage or, for refusing to do something that public policy would condemn, when the discharge is coupled with a showing of bad faith, malice or retaliation." Id. 742 P.2d at 552-553. (Footnotes ommitted).

Although the court instructed the jury on public policy, no effort was made to require separate findings on the two incidents alleged to have resulted in Plaintiff's termination. We find that with regard to the inventory discrepancies, which we shall refer to as "incident number two", the plaintiff failed to...