Sacked worker blames porn on malware
Published: 03 Oct 2007 17:12 BST
…Plaintiff has failed to state a claim as Indiana has heretofore refused to acknowledge a cause of action in negligence based upon an employer's defective performance of an employment contract.
Plaintiff's second allegation of negligence also fails to state a claim as HIPAA does not create a duty on the part of employers to protect employees from computer-virus-related injuries; instead, HIPAA creates a duty owed by St Francis to its patients to maintain the confidentiality of their protected health information...
The Indiana Supreme Court currently recognises only three exceptions to the presumption that employment without a defined or ascertainable duration, or without a specific job security agreement, is terminable at-will: 1) when the employee supplies adequate independent consideration in return for permanent employment; 2) when termination contravenes a clear statutory right or duty; and 3) when the employee establishes promissory estoppel. (The complaint) implicates only the second of these exceptions, the public policy exception. In this count, Farr asserts that the termination of his employment constitutes wrongful discharge because St Francis terminated him in order to cover up its violation of HIPAA.
The public policy exception to the at-will doctrine can be "generalised to the proposition that an employee who has been fired for exercising a statutory right or refusing to violate the law has a claim for wrongful discharge". This is a narrow exception to the at-will doctrine, and the Indiana Supreme Court has expressed its reluctance to broaden it absent direction from the state legislature.
Despite the reiteration of the narrowness of the public policy exception by the Indiana Supreme Court, Plaintiff implores us to extend the public policy exception to allow a claim for wrongful discharge when an employee is fired out of expediency to cover up an alleged violation of law by the employer. To bolster his argument, Plaintiff claims that his termination contravenes Plaintiff's "right to live his life free of specious and knowingly false accusations that were designed to hide his employer's wrongs". Although it is likely that most people would like to live a life free from specious and false accusations, Plaintiff fails to indicate how such a freedom is clearly secured by statute (specifically, HIPAA).
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