{"id":226,"date":"2013-02-19T17:09:17","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T17:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dfwcounsel.com\/?p=226"},"modified":"2013-02-19T17:09:17","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T17:09:17","slug":"illegal-act-wrongful-termination-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/illegal-act-wrongful-termination-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Extends Protection for Wrongful Termination Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fort Worth Court of Appeals Addresses Sabine Pilot<\/em> <\/strong>“Good Faith Belief” Exception<\/h2>\n

If an employee refuses to perform an act that he or she believes in good faith may be illegal, and is fired as a result, has the employee been wrongfully discharged under Texas law? This is the question that the Fort Worth Court of Appeals recently addressed in the affirmative. See Young v. Nortex Found. Designs, Inc.<\/em>, No. 02-11-00470-CV, (Tex. App.–Fort Worth, February 7, 2013), available at: http:\/\/www.2ndcoa.courts.state.tx.us\/opinions\/PDFOpinion.asp?OpinionId=24069). \u00a0While Texas is an at-will employment state (meaning either the employee or employer can terminate the employment relationship at any time), Texas courts have created an exception to this rule which prohibits an employer from terminating an employee for refusing to commit an illegal act. This type of wrongful discharge claim is known as a “Sabine Pilot”<\/em> action. The elements of a Sabine Pilot<\/em> action are as follows:<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0The plaintiff was an at-will employee;<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0The plaintiff refused to perform an illegal act; and<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0The plaintiff was terminated solely as a result.<\/p>\n

Sabine Pilot Serv. v. Hauck<\/em>, 687 S.W.2d 733, 735 (Tex. 1985); Burt v. City of Burkburnett<\/em>, 800 S.W.2d 625, 627 (Tex.App.\u2013Fort Worth 1990, writ denied). A plaintiff that prevails on a Sabine Pilot claim in Texas may be entitled to recover back pay, future pay, mental anguish damages, exemplary damages, injunctive relief and reinstatement. Safeshred, Inc. v. Martinez<\/em>, 365 S.W.3d 655 (Tex. 2012);<\/p>\n

In the Nortex<\/em> case, the Plaintiff was formerly a draftsman for a foundation design firm. In 2010, he received a set of plans bearing a black stamp stating \u201cIF THIS STAMP IS NOT RED IT IS AN ILLEGAL SET OF PLANS,\u201d and \u201cREPRODUCTION OF THESE PLANS BY ANY MEANS IS PROHIBITED BY FEDERAL LAW.\u201d The Plaintiff refused to work on a design based on these plans, believing that doing so would constitute illegal copyright infringement, and was fired as a result. After his termination, the company obtained a copy of the red-stamped plans. The Plaintiff sued, asserting a Sabine Pilot claim, and his former employer contended at trial that the Plaintiff was never asked to commit an illegal act, because the homeowner had the original plan. The Plaintiff contended that his good faith belief that he would have been committing an illegal act was sufficient to state a Sabine Pilot<\/em> claim. The jury found in favor of the Plaintiff and awarded damages in excess of $300,000. The trial court granted the Defendants JNOV motion and set aside the jury verdict. On appeal, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals had to decide whether to adopt this \u201cgood faith\u201d doctrine to Sabine Pilot claims. In Johnston v. Del Mar Distrib. Co.<\/em>, the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals held that \u201cthe Sabine Pilot exception necessarily covers a situation where an employee has a good faith belief that her employer has requested her to perform an act which may subject her to criminal penalties.\u201d 776 S.W.2d 768, 771 (Tex. App.\u2014 Corpus Christi 1989, writ denied). The Fort Worth Court of Appeals, relying on Johnston, held that, by asking the Plaintiff to use the black-stamped copy of the plans, refusing to provide him with the red-stamped copy, and firing him when he refused to use the unlicensed copy, the employer had wrongfully terminated the Plaintiff under the Sabine Pilot<\/em> doctrine. Accordingly, the Court reversed and rendered judgment in favor of the Plaintiff in accordance with the jury\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n

In dissent, Justice McCoy stated that he did not believe that the \u201cgood faith belief\u201d exception was a proper statement of the law, and thus affirmance was appropriate. But Justice McCoy also noted that an affirmance would be \u201cless than satisfying\u201d because it would allow en employer to ask an employee to do an illegal act, fire him for refusing to do so, then avoid liability by proving that the act was not in fact illegal. But Justice McCoy noted that this unfairness was for the legislature or the Texas Supreme Court, not the intermediate appellate courts, to fix. Given the Texas Supreme Court\u2019s insistence (usually in dicta) that the Sabine Pilot doctrine be narrowly construed, and the potential expansion of the doctrine through the \u201cgood faith belief\u201d exception, it would not be surprising to see certiorari granted in this case.<\/p>\n

Author: Josh Borsellino<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fort Worth Court of Appeals Addresses Sabine Pilot “Good Faith Belief” Exception If an employee refuses to perform an act that he or she believes in good faith may be illegal, and is fired as a result, has the employee been wrongfully discharged under Texas law? This is the question that the Fort Worth Court…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3886],"tags":[3887,3888,3889,3890],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfwcounsel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}