F. David Shelene

If you have ever worked for someone else, and you were non-Union, you have worked under a doctrine called the AT-WILL employment doctrine. It is a doctrine and law in most states which says an employee may be fired for ‘any reason or no reason.’ In other words, if an employer doesn’t like your looks, he can fire you and you have no recourse. If you work in some states, there are some laws which state that,

“The gravamen of the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is that the conduct complained of must be of an extreme and outrageous type. As a preliminary matter, it is for the court to determine if the defendant's conduct is so extreme as to permit recovery. Pennsylvania courts have been chary to declare conduct outrageous so as to permit recovery for intentional infliction of emotional distress and have allowed recovery only in limited circumstances where the conduct has been clearly outrageous. It has been said that the conduct must be 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 society.”

The key word is outrageous.

Moreover, courts applying Pennsylvania law have failed to find conduct outrageous . . . where an employer engaged in a premeditated plan to force an employee to resign by making employment conditions more difficult."

In JOHN H. COX, Appellant, v. KEYSTONE CARBON COMPANY, RICHARD REUSCHER AND WILLIAM REUSCHER, defendant fired plaintiff the day that plaintiff returned from triple by- pass surgery.

The Third Circuit found that even though defendant was aware of plaintiff's physically and mentally weak condition and fired him with the intent to deprive him of medical and disability benefits, this conduct did not rise to the level of outrageousness required for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

If you read this case you find that they piled so much work onto Mr. Cox that he could not do it all.

Can you believe it? An employer can push you so hard after a triple bypass operation that you could not possibly do your job and then fire you because you can’t, and that’s not outrageous in most courts, (judges) minds.

Everyone that wants a job in the United States of America, the richest nation on earth, should have one. Why? Because you are expected to buy things to survive in the U. S. To by things, you need money. To get money, you need a job. In other simpler terms, to survive in our country, you need a job. Once you get the job, unless you have Union representation, you have no recourse if your boss decides to hire his relative over you and send you packing. Do you think you don’t need Union representation? If something happens to you to get your employer down on you, you will. Of course then it will be too late. Union representation gives you the rights you have on the street in the workplace. If you commit a crime in public, you have a right to your day in court to have your say. In the workplace, things are a little different.

If, after reading the above case you feel that Mr. Cox was treated fairly, then there is no reason to go on. It is obvious your mind will never change until something like this happens to you. However, if you think as I do that this is clearly outrageous, then do some searching on the Internet for similar cases. There are many.

These pompous judges who have a life long appointment and who have never known what a real day’s work is like must be pressured to make more reasonable rulings. Plus, the people who appoint them must be voted out and replaced with judges who have compassion on the hard working Americans who have made our nation great!

You may wake up one day and be out of a job. If that happens to you, will you have recourse? Remember that if you don’t have a contract and representation at work, you are way out on a limb, a tiny little limb.