Opinion
No. CV02-0815945S
October 21, 2005
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
The plaintiff was employed by defendant Saint Francis Care as a supervisor from 1993 until 2001, when she was fired. Defendant Ann Long was plaintiff's supervisor at the time of the events at issue. Plaintiff alleges that Long engineered her termination by improperly creating an entirely false set of facts which she used to convince St. Francis to fire her without resort to the employer's progressive discipline process. Further facts will be discussed where necessary in explaining the court's ruling.
Defendants have moved for summary judgment on all counts of plaintiff's "Revised Substitute Complaint," dated October 15, 2003. This complaint contains five counts. Count One alleges that defendant Long tortiously interfered with plaintiff's employment with St. Francis and thereby caused plaintiff to lose her job. Count Two alleges a breach of plaintiff's "express and implied contract of employment" by St. Francis, because it discharged her without cause and in violation of its written, progressive discipline policy. Count Three is a claim against Long for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Count Four alleges that St. Francis negligently misrepresented to the plaintiff certain information about the nature of her employment relationship with the Hospital and the circumstances under which her employment could be terminated. Count Five is a claim against Long for negligent infliction of emotional distress.
For the reasons discussed below, the court denies the motion as to Counts One and grants summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Counts Two Through Five. CT Page 13940-dv
I. First Count — Tortious Interference with the Employment Relationship
Connecticut law recognizes a cause of action for tortuous interference with contract rights in the employment context. In Daley v. Aetna Life Casualty Co., 249 Conn. 766, 805 (1999), the Court held that "[f]or a plaintiff successfully to prosecute such an action it must prove that the defendant's conduct was in fact tortuous. This element may be satisfied by proof that the defendant was guilty of fraud, misrepresentation, intimidation or molestation . . . or that the defendant acted maliciously."
Plaintiff has, in opposition to this motion, presented the court with documentation which would tend to prove that defendant Long, in initiating and pursuing the process which led to plaintiff's termination, was motivated by a desire to retaliate against her for complaining to a member of St. Francis's human resources staff about her allegedly inappropriate behavior toward the plaintiff. The information presented to the court on this issue clearly creates an issue of fact which would require a trial judge to submit Count One to the jury for resolution. The Motion as to Count One is therefore denied.
Count Two — Breach of Contract
The resolution of this issue is based entirely on the court's review of the St. Francis Employee Handbook. It is undisputed that plaintiff has acknowledged receipt of the Handbook. It is well settled in Connecticut that "statements in an employer's personnel manual may . . . under appropriate circumstances . . . give rise to an express or implied contract between employer and employee." Gaudio v. Griffin Health ServicesCorp., 249 Conn. 523, 532 (1999). It is equally clear that, "[b]y eschewing language that could reasonably be construed as a basis for a contractual promise, or by including appropriate disclaimers of the intention to contract, employers can protect themselves against employee contract claims based on statements made in personnel manuals." Finley v. Aetna Life Casualty Co., 202 Conn. 190, 199, fn. 5 (1987). Counsel on both sides have directed the court's attention to numerous trial court decisions addressing motions to strike and motions for summary judgment on employee contract claims where the dispositive issue is the nature and extent of the employer's handbook disclaimers.
Defendants' Exhibits H (the Handbook) and N (plaintiff's signed, 1996 acknowledgment that she had received the Handbook).
A review of this particular Employee Handbook makes it very clear that defendant St. Francis Care made it abundantly clear to employees such as the plaintiff that they were unequivocally in an at-will employment relationship with the Hospital. While the Handbook sets forth the defendant's progressive discipline policy in considerable detail, it also states clearly that the defendant can choose to fire an employee without first resorting to its progressive discipline procedures. Moreover, the CT Page 13940-dw Handbook states that human resources department employees do not have the right or the authority to change the terms of employment as set forth in the Handbook.
The cases cited by plaintiff in opposition to this portion of the motion for summary judgment do not provide compelling support for her argument. In Rodriguez v. Host International, 2000 Conn.Super. LEXIS 3575 (J.D. of Hartford, 2000), Judge Peck denied summary judgment on this issue where the employer's progressive discipline policy was not part of the employee handbook and it did not contain the disclaimer contained in the handbook. In this case, while the St. Francis progressive discipline policy is set forth in a separate document, the provisions of that document are substantially the same as the description of the policy set forth in the Handbook. Contrary to plaintiff's assertion, the receipt she signed for the Employee Handbook includes an acknowledgment that she was in an at-will employment relationship. In Harrup v. Allied Printing Services, Inc., 2000 Conn.Super LEXIS 774 (J.D. of Hartford, 2000), there was a disclaimer in the employer's handbook, but Judge Hennessey denied summary judgment because she found an issue of fact as to what may have been said to the plaintiff to the contrary. In this case, the Handbook makes it very clear that what was allegedly said to the plaintiff about the circumstances under which she could be fired did not commit the employer to do anything. Finally, in Trombley v. Convalescent Center of Norwich, 1999 Conn.Super LEXIS 1688 (J.D. of New London 1999), Judge Martin denied summary judgment for the employer because its handbook stated that employees could only be fired for "just cause" and the handbook included "none of the `eschewing' language referred to in Finley v. Aetna Life Casualty," supra.
Plaintiff's Exhibit L, "Disciplinary Procedure Policy 24-4."
Plaintiff's Brief, p. 26.
Defendants' Exhibit N.
The motion is therefore granted as to Count Two.
III. Count Three — Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
If the plaintiff were to prevail on her claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, she would need to establish four elements:
It must be shown (1) that the actor intended to inflict emotional distress or that he knew or should have known that emotional distress was the likely result of his conduct; . . . (2) that the conduct was extreme and outrageous; (3) that the defendant's conduct was the cause of the plaintiff's distress; and (4) that the emotional distress sustained by the plaintiff was severe." (Internal quotation marks CT Page 13940-dx omitted.)
Carrol v. Allstate Ins. Co., 262 Conn. 433, 442-43 (2003). The defendants assert that, as a matter of law, plaintiff cannot prove that the defendants' conduct was "extreme and outrageous." They are indeed correct that whether a defendant's conduct was extreme and outrageous is "initially a question for the court to determine." Appleton v. Board of Education, 254 Conn. 205, 210 (2000).
After reviewing the documents submitted by the parties, this court agrees with the defendants. While plaintiff may well succeed in proving that defendant Long's conduct was wrongful, her behavior, even if one assumes that all of plaintiff's claims are true, does not reach the required level of "extreme and outrageous." As our Supreme Court held in Appleton.
Liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress requires conduct that exceeds all bounds usually tolerated by decent society . . . Liability has been found only where the conduct has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Generally, the case is one in which the recitation of the facts to an average member of the community would arouse his resentment against the actor, and lead him to exclaim `outrageous!'
Appleton v. Board of Education, supra, at 210-11. While defendant Long may have behaved badly, perhaps even maliciously, in this matter, this court does not believe that, as a matter of law, her conduct was outrageous. As indicated in the several trial court decisions cited by defendants, it is entirely proper, under the correct circumstances, to grant summary judgment on an intentional infliction of mental distress claim where, as here, the conduct at issue falls short of the extreme behavior the cause of action was developed to address.
The motion is therefore granted as to Count Three.
Count Four — Negligent Misrepresentation
In the fourth count of the operative complaint, plaintiff claims that employees or agents of St. Francis CT Page 13940-dy negligently misrepresented to her that "she could be dismissed only for cause, and only after all of the procedures as set forth in the Employee Manual were followed." In her opposition to this motion, plaintiff claims that Denise Currier, a human resources employee at the Hospital, told her, during a discussion about what defendant Long was allegedly trying to do to the plaintiff, that plaintiff could not be fired without first going through the progressive discipline process.
Revised Substitute Complaint Count Four, ¶ 15.
If Ms. Currier had the authority to bind the defendant employer, defendants would not be entitled to summary judgment on this claim. However, as discussed above, the employer, in promulgating its Employee Handbook, made it absolutely clear that no one in the Human Resources department had any authority whatsoever "to make or enter into any contracts or agreements with you concerning your employment." Under these circumstances, any reliance by plaintiff on any alleged misrepresentation made by Ms. Currier would have been entirely unreasonable. Defendant is entitled to summary judgment on Count Four.
Defendants' Exhibit H, p. 4.
Count Five — Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
Defendant Long is entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff's claim that she acted negligently to cause her emotional distress and anxiety, but not for the reasons she has set forth in her motion. She argues that an employer can negligently inflict emotional distress on an employee it decides to fire, if at all, only in the way it handles the "termination process," which, she submits, means the way in which the termination decision is communicated to the employee and the way in which the employee is made to depart the employment premises thereafter. Parsons v. United Technologies Corp., 243 Conn. 66 (1997) involves allegedly negligent behavior by an employer when it had its terminated employee removed from the premises by security personnel. However, Morris v. Hartford Courant Co., 200 Conn. 676 (1986), on which the Parsons court relied, involved the employer's alleged negligence in reaching its decision to fire the plaintiff. This court interprets "termination process," in this context, to mean the CT Page 13940-ez entire process through which the employer determines that the employee should be dismissed.
Plaintiff's opposition to this motion sets forth a scenario in which defendant Long got her fired by assembling completely false evidence sufficient to convince defendant St. Francis that plaintiff's behavior and performance on the job were so problematic that she should be terminated immediately, without any attempt to address her problems through the progressive discipline process. The documentation she submitted in opposition to summary judgment is sufficient, in this court's opinion, to create an issue of fact as to whether Ms. Long behaved with malice toward the plaintiff. There is absolutely nothing before the court which suggests any possibility whatsoever that any wrongful conduct which defendant Long might allegedly have engaged in was anything other than intentional. There is nothing here, in other words, which would allow a jury "reasonably and legally" to conclude that Ms. Long's conduct toward the plaintiff was negligent. The defendants are therefore entitled to summary judgment on Count Five.