109 A.D.2d 639 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1985
— Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Arthur E. Blyn, J.), entered May 23, 1984, reversed, to the extent appealed from, on the law, without
On March 23, 1981 plaintiff was- hired, without a written contract and for an indefinite period, as secretary to defendant Maggie Drezin, the director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 237 Retirees’ Benefit Fund. In February 1982 Ms. Drezin advised plaintiff that her employment was to be terminated for purposes of office reorganization, and on March 12,1982 plaintiff was discharged with one week’s salary and one week’s vacation pay.
In July 1983 plaintiff commenced an action against Local 237 and Ms. Drezin, alleging that plaintiff had actually been discharged for spreading rumors about a romantic involvement between Ms. Drezin and an officer of Local 237, a charge that plaintiff claims was false. The complaint stated five causes of action: the first alleging a denial of due process in that she was denied a hearing, the second for intentional infliction of emotional distress, the third for prima facie tort, the fourth for breach of an implied covenant of good-faith performance under contract, and the fifth for wrongful discharge.
Special Term granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing each of the aforesaid causes of action except the fourth. The motion was denied as to the fourth cause of action without prejudice to bringing a new motion for summary judgment dismissing that cause of action upon completion of discovery proceedings. Special Term reasoned that plaintiff should have an opportunity to examine any codified personnel policies of her employer so that she might demonstrate that her employment was governed by principles set forth in Weiner v McGrawHill, Inc. (57 NY2d 458). For reasons that follow we conclude that defendants’ motion to dismiss the fourth cause of action should have been granted, and the complaint dismissed.
In Weiner (supra, p 460), the Court of Appeals undertook to decide whether, in the circumstances of that case “the plaintiff, though not engaged for a fixed term of employment, pleaded a good cause of action for breach of contract against his employer because, allegedly, he was discharged without the ‘just and sufficient cause’ or the rehabilitative efforts specified in the employer’s personnel handbook and allegedly promised at the
In Murphy v American Home Prods. Corp. (58 NY2d 293, 305), the Court of Appeals reaffirmed the long-standing rule in New York that “absent a constitutionally impermissible purpose, a statutory proscription, or an express limitation in the individual contract of employment, an employer’s right at any time to terminate an employment at will remains unimpaired.” The court explicitly rejected as incongruous and inconsistent with the employer’s otherwise unfettered right of termination of an at-will employee any implied obligation on the part of the employer “to deal with his employees fairly and in good faith” (58 NY2d, at p 304). It is precisely such an implied covenant that plaintiff in this case has alleged as the basis of her fourth cause of action.
In opposition to defendants’ motion for summary judgment plaintiff claimed that through further discovery she expected to “bring to light personnel policies in codified form, such as employment guidelines, employment manuals and the like, which would give rise to the protections afforded the plaintiff in Weiner v McGraw-Hill, Inc., 57 NY2d 458”. Quite aside from defendants’ sworn assertion that no such personnel manual or writing exists that is applicable to plaintiff, it is clear from the pleadings and motion papers that even if such materials were ultimately found to exist, they were not known to plaintiff at the time she began her employment, nor indeed thereafter, and therefore could not have been relied upon by plaintiff so that they might be deemed express limitations on the defendants’