delivered the opinion óf the court:
Plaintiff, William Vorpagel, appeals the order of the circuit court dismissing his complaint in which he alleged that defendant, Maxell Corporation of America, discharged him in retaliation for his cooperating in the criminal investigation of a co-employee. Plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in dismissing the complaint because it states a claim for retaliatory discharge even though the co-еmployee’s crime had no connection with plaintiffs work. We reverse and remand.
Plaintiffs first amended complaint, which is at issue here, alleges the following. Defendant employed plaintiff as a warehouse supervisor. Plaintiff had worked for defendant for 17 years without receiving a reprimand of any sort. His immediate supervisor was the warehouse manager, John Maloney.
In 1999, Maloney was charged with various sexual offenses based on his alleged sexual relationship with his minor daughter. At some point, Maloney made incriminating statements to plaintiff. Plaintiff contacted the Lake County State’s Attorney’s office and reported what Maloney told him. Plaintiff later gave a written statement detailing Maloney’s admissions. This statement, along with a supplemental witness list that included plaintiffs name, was tendered to Maloney’s attorney in the criminal case. His attorney, in turn, gave the documents to Maloney.
Soon after Maloney received plaintiffs statement, Maloney told plaintiff he did not want him working for him any more. On April 19, 2000, Maloney pleaded guilty to two criminal charges and was sentenced to 48 months’ probation, including 36 months’ periodic imprisonment.
According to plaintiffs complaint, Maloney began an orchestrated effort to fabricate falsе allegations of misconduct against plaintiff in order to secure his discharge. Maloney got other employees to sign off on false write-ups and grievance complaints and threatened other employees to sign grievances containing false allegations of misconduct by plaintiff. On May 4, 2000, defendant gave plaintiff a written warning that his job performance was substandard in every area and that he would bе terminated in 30 days if he did not improve. On June 9, 2000, Maloney, “acting in his official capacity for Maxell,” discharged plaintiff. The complaint alleged that plaintiff’s discharge was motivated by his cooperation with the criminal investigation against Maloney and as such violated Illinois’s public policy favoring the investigation and prosecution of crime.
The trial court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the amended cоmplaint. The court stated that the complaint did not state a cause of action for retaliatory discharge because it alleged that plaintiff was discharged for reporting nonwork-related conduct and because there was no “nexus” between the protected activity and the discharge. After the court denied his motion to reconsider, plaintiff filed a timely notice of appeal.
Plаintiff contends that his complaint states a cause of action for retaliatory discharge. The complaint alleges that plaintiff was fired in retaliation for engaging in a protected activity: assisting in the prosecution of crime. According to plaintiff, the public policy favoring the investigation and prosecution of crime is the same regardless of whether the crime occurs in the workplace. Thus, plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in distinguishing between work-related and nonwork-related crimes. Plaintiff also contends that his complaint adequately alleges a “nexus” between the protected activity and his firing.
Defendant responds that Illinois’s courts have repeatedly cautioned against expanding the tort. Further, no reported case has found a cause of action for retaliatory discharge based on a report of nonworkrelated criminal conduct.
The trial court dismissed plaintiffs complaint pursuant to section 2 — 615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — 615 (West 2000)). In ruling on a section 2 — 615 motion, the court must take as true all well-pleaded facts and draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. Ziemba v. Mierzwa,
The general rule in Illinois remains that an employer may fire an at-will employee for any reason or no reason. Stebbings,
In Palmateer, the court found that Illinois’s public policy clearly favors the investigation and prosecution of crime and, accordingly, protects “citizen crime-fighters.” The court stated, “There is no public policy more basic, nothing more implicit in the concept of ordered liberty ***” than the enforcement of a state’s criminal code. Palmateer,
“ ‘Public policy favors the exposure of crime, and the cooperation of citizens possessing knowledge thereof is essential to effective implementation of that policy.’ ” Palmateer,85 Ill. 2d at 132-33 , quoting Joiner v. Benton Community Bank,82 Ill. 2d 40 , 44 (1980).
Significantly, Palmateer never identifies the specific crime that the plaintiff reported аnd whether it was work related. It appears that the complaint did not include this information, and the court did not find the omission significant. The opinion states only that the plaintiff was discharged for supplying information to a law-enforcement agency “that an IH employee might be violating the Criminal Code.” Palmateer,
•3 The pronouncements in Palmateer about the importance of enforcing the state’s criminаl laws apply with equal force whether or not the alleged crime is connected with a plaintiffs employment. Nothing in Palmateer indicates an intention to restrict the cause of action to employees who report crimes directly connected with their employment. In fact, the allegations held to state a cause of action in Palmateer are nearly identical to those in this cаse except that here plaintiff names the specific crime of which Maloney was suspected. There is no reason for reaching a different result in this case merely because plaintiff supplied details that the supreme court deemed unnecessary.
Defendant cites numerous cases for the proposition that Illinois’s courts have continually declined to expand the scope of the retaliatory discharge tort. However, plaintiff is not arguing for an expansion of the tort. Rather, his claim is already within its contours as defined in Palmateer.
Defendant also argues that all of the reported cases concern crimes occurring within or connected to a plaintiffs workplace. As noted, Palmateer does not specifically state whether the crime was connected with рlaintiffs employment. With that important exception, defendant’s empirical analysis is correct. However, it is of limited value in deciding whether retaliatory discharge applies to the reporting of a fellow employee’s private conduct. The cases defendant cites were simply decided on their facts. Defendant cites no case that specifically refused to find a cause of аction based on the reporting of nonwork-related conduct. As plaintiff points out, an employee is more likely to encounter criminal conduct while on the job than he is to learn about purely private, nonwork-related conduct of a fellow employee, and this presumably accounts for the fact that cases involving work-related conduct are more common.
•4 Defendant also contends that plaintiff cannot state a cause of action because he did not “report” any criminal conduct. Rather, it appears that the investigation of Maloney was already under way and plaintiff merely agreed to give a statement and provide potential testimony of unknown evidentiary value. This contention, too, is refuted by Palmateer. The court observed that public policy favоred the plaintiffs volunteering of information to a law-enforcement agency. It also protected his “agreement to assist in the investigation and prosecution of the suspected crime.” Palmateer,
Implicit in this argument seems to be the idea that plaintiffs motives may not have been entirely pure. Perhaps plaintiff saw an opportunity for career advancement when he tried to help secure his supervisor’s conviction of a serious crime. However, we believe that the existence of a mixed motive is irrelevant under Palmateer.
In summary, Palmateer does not require that the conduct reported be work related. The complaint should not have been dismissed on this basis.
The trial court also stated that the complaint did not show a “nexus,” or causal link, between plaintiffs statement to the prosecutor and his termination. Defendant advances five reasons why the complaint does not allege such a connection. We consider these contentions in turn.
Defendant first contends that the 10-month interval from the time plaintiff gave his statement until he was fired is too long as a matter of law to show proximate cause. Ordinarily, proximate cause is a question of fact for the jury. Diehl v. Polo Cooperative Ass’n,
Here, the complaint alleges that plaintiff worked for defendant for 17 years with an unblemished record. However, within two weeks of Maloney’s guilty plea, he began receiving negative evaluations. According to plaintiff, Maloney began a campaign of false reports against plaintiff in order to justify his firing, which took place about one mоnth later. Taking these facts as true, plaintiff has clearly established a causal connection between his protected activity and his discharge.
In reaching this conclusion, we disagree with defendant’s premise that the time between when plaintiff first reported Maloney’s statements to prosecutors and his discharge — approximately 10 months — is of overriding significance in assessing causation. Again we note plaintiff’s allegation that Maloney began a campaign of harassment within two weeks after the guilty plea. Clearly, Maloney had good reason to wait until the criminal charges were resolved before taking action against plaintiff. Maloney may have believed he could persuade plaintiff not to testify but would have lost this leverage had he fired him. Moreover, it would not have helped Maloney’s cause for the jury or the sentencing judge to learn that he had fired one of the witnesses against him. Such conduct itself might have been criminal. See 720 ILCS 5/32 — 4a(a) (West 2000). Plaintiff alleges that Maloney began laying the groundwork to have plaintiff discharged almost immediately after his guilty plea resolved the charges. This is an appropriate date from which to determine whether plaintiffs report of criminal activity and his discharge are causally related.
None of the cases defendant cites requires a different result. Defendant cites several federal cases for the proposition that, when “a significant period of time has passed between the employee’s activities and the discharge, courts routinely hold as a matter of law that there is no causal link and the retaliation claim is dismissed.” However, all of these cases were decided on motions for summary judgment, not motions to dismiss. Therefore, the factual record was more developed than in this case.
In most cases, the employers had proffered legitimate reasons for the firings or layoffs. For example, in Lamas v. Freeman Decorating Co.,
Cases such as Lamas clearly refute the contention that the passage of time destroys causation as a matter of law. Lamas merely held that the plaintiff did not provide sufficient facts to defeat summary judgment in the face of the employer’s lеgitimate reason for its action. Here, as detailed above, plaintiff pleads a much stronger causal link than did Lamas. Moreover, at this stage of the proceedings, defendant has not even articulated a legitimate reason for firing plaintiff. In Bartley, the appellate court reinstated the complaint even though it alleged that the plaintiff was fired two years after he participated in the FBI investigation. Bartley,
Defendant next contends that the complaint does not allege that Maloney knew plaintiff was cooperating with the prosecutors. Even a casual review of the complaint refutes this contention. Plaintiff alleges that a prosecutor gave Maloney’s lawyer a copy of рlaintiff’s statement and an updated witness list including plaintiffs name. Within a month of his guilty plea, Maloney began a campaign of harassment against plaintiff resulting in his firing. Clearly, a fact finder could infer from these facts that Maloney knew that plaintiff had offered to testify against him.
Defendant acknowledges the allegation that Maloney received the witness statement from his attorney, but contends that “there is no factual basis to support” this allegation. We are aware of no requirement that a plaintiff specifically identify the source of each allegation in a complaint. In ruling on a section 2 — 615 motion, the court must accept as true all well-pleaded facts and draw all reasonable inferences from those facts. Kolegas v. Heftel Broadcasting Corp.,
Defendant next contends that plaintiff cannot establish a causal link based on Maloney’s sentencing date. We have already rejected this contention in our discussion of the general causation issue.
Defendant argues that plaintiff cannot predicate a cause of action on allegedly retaliatory conduct short оf discharge. Defendant refers to plaintiffs allegations that Maloney falsely accused plaintiff of misconduct and encouraged others to do so. We agree that Illinois does not recognize a cause of action for retaliatory conduct short of discharge. See Zimmerman v. Buchheit of Sparta, Inc.,
Defendant’s final contention is that the complaint is insufficient because it fails to ascribe a retaliatory motive to defendant (as opposеd to Maloney). This argument, too, is based on a misreading of the cases.
Maxell, a corporation, cannot have a motive to do anything. Corporations can only act through their agents. Small v. Sussman,
The cases defendant cites do not help it and actually tend to support plaintiffs position. In Buckner v. Atlantic Plant Maintenance, Inc.,
Generally, a principal is liable for the acts of its agent committed within the scope of his authority. Brubakken v. Morrison,
Here, plaintiff alleges, although inartfully, that Maloney was acting as Maxell’s agent when he fired plaintiff and, inferentially, that defendant ratified the decision. Defendant has not convinced us that anything more was required.
We are aware of no requirement that for a plaintiff to state a cause of action for retaliatory discharge, he must allege that his firing was in the corporation’s best interest, as opposed to that of the individual manager who carried it out. In Belline v. K-Mart Corp.,
It is apparent that it would have been in the corporation’s best interest to retain the employee who was trying to prevent the theft of its property and that the firing was carried out by the new manager for reasons of his own. Nevertheless, the court upheld the cause of action against the corporation. Belline, 940 E2d at 187-89.
In Thomas v. Zamberletti,
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the circuit court of Lake County is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.
O’MALLEY and GROMETER, JJ., concur.