Biggs v. Hilton Hotel Corp.
Biggs v. Hilton Hotel Corp.
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff appeals from an order of the circuit court granting summary disposition in favor of defendant on plaintiff’s wrongful discharge claim. Summary disposition was granted pursuant to MCR 2.116(0(10) (no genuine issue of material fact). We affirm.
Plaintiff was employed by defendant as the director of housekeeping of the Novi Hilton. Plaintiff began his employment on February 19, 1988, and was discharged approximately eight months later, apparently because of poor work performance. Plaintiff contends that the terms of his employment with defendant provided for termination only for "just cause” and that, pursuant to the provisions of an employee policy manual issued by defendant, the appropriate level of discipline would have been a verbal or written warning concerning plaintiff’s deficiencies in performance rather than termination. Defendant maintains that plaintiff was an at-will employee. We agree with the trial court that there is no genuine issue of material fact that plaintiff was other than an at-will employee.
This case may be resolved by considering the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rowe v Montgomery Ward & Co, Inc, 437 Mich 627; 473 NW2d 268 (1991). As the Court explained in Rowe, contracts for permanent employment are for an indefinite period of time and are presumptively construed to provide for employment at will. Id. at 636. The employee may overcome this presumption by proof of an express contract for a definite term or a provision forbidding discharge in the absence of just cause, or by proof that there was a promise implied in fact of employment security, such as
Furthermore, the employment manual at issue explicitly stated that it was not an employment contract, but only a guideline of the policies and benefits provided by defendant. We do not find it to be of any moment that the manual may not have explicitly stated that employment was at-will and that termination was not limited to those instances where just cause is shown. As stated above, the presumption is that employment is at-will, and the proper inquiry is whether the employer, through its employment manual or otherwise, made representations or promises that termination would be only for just cause. No such representations were contained in this employment manual, and the manual did, in fact, explicitly state that it was not a contract but merely a guideline.
The fact that defendant had established a disciplinary system for its employees and, apparently, obligated plaintiff to abide by that disciplinary system in dealing with his subordinates does not establish unequivocally plaintiffs position that he was a just-cause employee rather than an at-will
With respect to any oral representations made during the preemployment interview, we are also unpersuaded that any such representations form the basis for finding a just-cause contract in this case. Oral statements of job security must be clear and unequivocal to overcome the presumption of employment at will. Id. at 644. The oral statements related by plaintiff in his brief were comments made during preemployment interviews by the general manager to the effect that he saw plaintiff as a person who would go places with the Hilton Corporation and that he felt the relationship would be a good one in which there would be an opportunity to grow and maintain some type of long-term relationship. We fail to see how these comments could induce a belief by plaintiff that
For the above reasons, we conclude that plaintiff has failed to bring forth any facts to support his claim that he was a just-cause employee and, therefore, the trial court properly granted summary disposition in favor of defendant. In light of this resolution, we need not consider plaintiff’s other argument, whether there was a question of material fact concerning whether defendant had just cause to discharge plaintiff.
Affirmed. Defendant may tax costs.
Concurring Opinion
(concurring). I concur in the result only. The trial court should be affirmed on the basis that there was just cause to discharge plaintiff, and no genuine issue of material fact existed to prevent summary disposition.
Reference
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- Biggs v. Hilton Hotel Corporation
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