Whitlock v. Haney Seed Co.

• Decision Date: 04 March 1986
• Docket Number: No. 16000,16000
• Citation: 110 Idaho 347,715 P.2d 1017
• Parties: Bobby G. WHITLOCK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HANEY SEED COMPANY, a corporation, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

Page 1017

715 P.2d 1017

110 Idaho 347

Bobby G. WHITLOCK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HANEY SEED COMPANY, a corporation, Defendant-Respondent.

No. 16000.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

March 4, 1986.

Lloyd J. Webb (argued) and Curtis R. Webb, Webb, Burton, Carlson & Pederson, Twin Falls, for plaintiff-appellant.

Robert D. Lewis, Cantrill, Skinner, Sullivan & King, Boise, for defendant-respondent.

BURNETT, Judge.

This is an appeal from a partial summary judgment dismissing a claim of wrongful discharge from employment. The issues presented are whether the claimant was an employee at will and whether his employment contract was unenforceable under the statute of frauds. For reasons stated below, we vacate the partial summary judgment.

Bobby Whitlock was terminated from employment as manager of the Haney Seed Company plant at Glenns Ferry. He sued the company, alleging wrongful discharge and defamation. The district court entered partial summary judgment for the company on the claim of wrongful discharge. The judgment was certified under I.R.C.P. 54(b) and this appeal followed.

The rules governing summary judgments are well known. Summary judgment is appropriate only when genuine issues of material fact are absent and the case can be decided as a matter of law. I.R.C.P. 56(c); Moss v. Mid-American Fire and Marine Insurance Co., 103 Idaho 298, 647 P.2d 754 (1982). Controverted facts are viewed in favor of the party resisting a motion for summary judgment. Where, as here, a jury has been requested, the nonmoving party is entitled to the benefit of reasonable inferences drawn from the evidentiary facts. Anderson v. Ethington, 103 Idaho 658, 651 P.2d 923 (1982).

We first apply these rules to the question whether Whitlock was an employee at will. Employment is said to be at will unless the agreement between employer and employee "specifies the duration of the employment, or limits the reasons for which the employee may be discharged...." MacNeil v. Minidoka Memorial Hospital, 108 Idaho 588, 589, 701 P.2d 208, 209 (1985). Employment at will may be terminated by either party for any reason without liability, except that an employee may not be discharged for a reason contravening public policy. Id.

In this case the employment contract was oral. Richard Cook, a principal shareholder and former president of Haney Seed Company, stated in an affidavit that he had hired Whitlock to serve as manager of the Glenns Ferry plant so long as Cook "owned Haney Seed Company" and so long as Whitlock "performed his duties ... in an acceptable manner." In a deposition, Whitlock expressed a slightly different understanding of the contract. He said that his employment was to continue "as long as the plant run [sic]. It was on a thirty year lease." Whitlock acknowledged in a supplemental affidavit that he was required to perform his duties "in a reasonably acceptable fashion." Although neither the Cook version nor the Whitlock version of the contract specified a discrete period of employment, both versions indicated that if Whitlock performed satisfactorily, he would keep his job until some extrinsic event--change in company ownership, cessation of plant operations, or expiration of the plant lease--occurred. The company was limited in the reasons for which it could terminate Whitlock's employment. Consequently, we hold that Whitlock was not an employee at will.

We next consider the district court's ruling that the oral employment contract was invalid under the statute of frauds. Idaho Code § 9-505 provides, in pertinent part, as follows:

In the following cases the agreement is invalid, unless the same or some note or memorandum thereof, be in writing and subscribed by the party charged, or by his agent. Evidence, therefore, of the agreement cannot be received without the writing or secondary evidence of its contents:

1. An agreement that by its terms is not to be performed within a year from the making thereof.

This provision has been narrowly construed by our Supreme Court. The statute does not govern an oral contract that "might have been fully performed and terminated, within a year...." Darknell v. Coeur d'Alene & St. Joe Transportation Co., 18 Idaho 61, 69, 108 P. 536, 539 (1910). See generally RESTATEMENT (SECOND) CONTRACTS § 130, comment a (1981). Thus, even if a contract appears on its face to anticipate performance for more than one year, it may fall outside the statute if it is subject to a condition or contingency that could occur within a year, terminating further performance. Hubbard v. Ball, 59 Idaho 78, 81 P.2d 73 (1938); J. CALAMARI & J. PERILLO, THE LAW OF CONTRACTS § 19-20 (2d ed. 1977). ¹

Here, the oral employment agreement contained both a condition and a contingency. The condition was satisfactory performance by...