White v. Hugh Chatham Memorial Hosp., Inc.

• Decision Date: 16 January 1990
• Docket Number: No. 8817SC821,8817SC821
• Citation: 97 N.C.App. 130,387 S.E.2d 80
• Parties: Aberdeen WHITE, Plaintiff, v. HUGH CHATHAM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, INC., Defendant.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

Page 80

387 S.E.2d 80

97 N.C.App. 130

Aberdeen WHITE, Plaintiff, v. HUGH CHATHAM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, INC., Defendant.

No. 8817SC821.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Jan. 16, 1990.

Mills & Rives by G. Wilborn Rives, Dobson, for plaintiff-appellant.

R. Lewis Alexander and R. Lewis Alexander, Jr., Elkin, for defendant-appellee.

PHILLIPS, Judge.

Plaintiff's complaint alleging claims for breach of contract and for intentionally inflicting emotional distress was dismissed by an order of summary judgment under authority of Rule 56, N.C. Rules of Civil Procedure. The order is erroneous as to the breach of contract claim and correct as to the claim for intentionally inflicting emotional distress.

The affidavits and other materials before the court indicate in pertinent part that: Plaintiff was employed by defendant as a full time nurses' assistant from March, 1951 to December, 1985 when she was discharged because of a disabling illness. The parties never had a written contract covering the employment. For several years before her discharge plaintiff was covered by the company's low cost group medical insurance plan that had limits of $1,000,000. In January, 1983 defendant distributed to its employees, including plaintiff, a "Personnel Policies Handbook," which stated that: "A full time employee who becomes disabled during his employment will be able to maintain his group insurance." Plaintiff knew of the statement and became disabled while a full time employee but was not permitted to continue her group medical insurance, as the policy of defendant's group carrier did not permit disabled former employees to continue under it. The individual policy that plaintiff was able to obtain costs more than the group policy, though its limits are only $100,000. Defendant's representation as to disabled employees being able to continue the group coverage was not withdrawn or disavowed before plaintiff became disabled. In denying that it was legally bound to make the coverage available and in discussing the matter with plaintiff defendant's employees were neither abusive nor demeaning but, as plaintiff testified in her deposition, were kind and considerate.

Obviously, the foregoing forecast of proof raises no genuine issue of material fact in the claim for intentionally inflicting emotional distress, Stanback v. Stanback, 297 N.C. 181, 254 S.E.2d 611 (1979), and that claim was properly dismissed. Since plaintiff did not argue otherwise in the brief she abandoned the claim in any event. Rule 28(a), N.C. Rules of Appellate Procedure.

It is equally clear, however, that the forecast of evidence does raise a genuine issue of fact as to plaintiff's claim for breach of contract. For the contract that plaintiff alleged and that her materials support is not a mutually binding bilateral employment contract, as the court and defendant mistakenly assumed, but a unilateral contract based upon defendant's offer of extra benefits to employees who continued in its employment until disabled and upon plaintiff accepting that offer by remaining in defendant's employment until she was disabled. Defendant's argument that the record contains no indication that after receiving the handbook plaintiff promised to continue her...