Employment Law: Understanding Wrongful Termination. A Research Guide By Cherish Fuller: Cases

• Binding - Precedent that must be followed. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, a lower court must honor findings of law made by a higher court that is within the appeals path of cases the court hears.
• Persuasive / Non-Binding - Precedent that is not mandatory for the court to follow but is helpful or relevant. Persuasive precedent includes cases decided by lower courts, by peer or higher courts from other geographic jurisdictions, cases made in other parallel systems, and in some exceptional circumstances, cases of other nations, treaties, world judicial bodies, etc. In a case of first impression, courts often rely on persuasive precedent from courts in other jurisdictions that have previously dealt with similar issues. Persuasive precedent may eventually become binding through the adoption of the persuasive precedent by a higher court.

Goldsmith v. Sorrento Holding Corp., 119 So. 2d 808 (Fla. 2d DCA 1960).
Employee's discharge without cause.

Gibbs v. H.J. Heinz Co., 536 So. 2d 370 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988).
Claim for wrongful termination of employment must plead existence of employment contract for definite duration. 

Vienneau v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 548 So. 2d 856 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989).
Breach of employment contract

Lay v. Roux Laboratories, Inc., 379 So. 2d 451 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980).
Employee scope of employment

Amjad Munim, M.D., P.A. v. Azar, 648 So. 2d 145 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994).
Cause of action was stated by former employee terminated without reason, where contract specified permissible grounds for dismissal. 

McArthur v. A.A. Green & Co. of Florida, Inc., 637 So. 2d 311 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994).
Wrongful termination of employment under contract.

Griffin v. ARX Holding Corp., 208 So. 3d 164 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016), review denied, 2017 WL 1833182 (Fla. 2017).
Employment contract was void ab initio, where employee before hire had pleaded guilty to extortion. Employee failed to obtain waiver from insurance regulator as required, which governed employment in insurance of persons convicted of crime involving dishonesty or breach of trust.

Ponton v. Scarfone, 468 So. 2d 1009 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1985).
Employee brought action against former employer for wrongful termination from employment, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Circuit Court dismissed the complaint, and employee appealed. The District Court of Appeal held that: (1) complaint alleging wrongful termination from employment failed to state claim for relief; (2) words attributed to employer in attempting to induce employee to join with him in liaison did not come within zone of conduct permitting determination that employee's right of privacy was unlawfully invaded; and (3) employer's conduct was not so outrageous as to constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Edenfield v. B & I Contractors, Inc., 624 So. 2d 389 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1993).
Worker sued employer for wrongful discharge. The Circuit Court granted summary judgment for employer and worker appealed. The District Court of Appeal held that: (1) settlement and release of workers' compensation claim would not bar action for subsequent wrongful termination alleged to be result of workers' compensation claim, and (2) there were triable issues of fact, precluding summary judgment for employer, as to whether worker was wrongfully discharged subsequent to release of workers' compensation claims.

Gibbs v. H.J. Heinz Co., 536 So. 2d 370 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1988).
Former employee appealed from an order of the Circuit Court for Orange County which dismissed his complaint against his former employer for wrongful termination. The District Court of Appeal held that employee failed to allege existence of an employment contract for a definite period of duration.

Jessla Const. Corp. v. Miami-Dade Cty. Sch. Bd., 23 So. 3d 1247 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2009).
Construction company failed to establish wrongful termination claim against school board, where contract expressly authorized either the project architect or “its authorized representative,” to certify that cause existed to terminate company's employment, individual who signed termination certification was an authorized representative of project architect, and termination certification complied with the requirements of the contract.

Walton v. Health Care Dist. of Palm Beach Cty., 862 So. 2d 852 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2003).
While allegations in nurse's wrongful termination complaint that terms of his employment were governed by county health care district's policies and procedures manual did not take nurse outside of “at will” employment status, in that allegations did not indicate that there was express language in employee handbook or policies and procedures manual which would have made manual a separate employment agreement with termination appropriate only upon conditions stated, since nurse was not afforded even a single opportunity to amend his complaint to state a cause of action for wrongful termination, he was entitled to such opportunity on remand.

Supreme Court

The highest appellate court in Florida, the Florida Supreme Court’s 150+ years span a time when the state was the least populated (1845) to the present (2014) when it ranks fourth nationwide. Decisions stemming from Florida’s highest court have helped shape, certainly, the state itself, but the nation as a whole.

District Courts of Appeal

There are five District Courts of Appeal in Florida, located respectively in Tallahassee, Lakeland, Miami, West Palm Beach and Daytona Beach.  As a general rule, decisions of the district courts of appeal represent the final appellate review of litigated cases.    

Trial Courts - Circuit

There are 20 judicial circuits in the Florida court system. Circuit courts have general trial jurisdiction over matters not assigned by statute to the county courts and also hear appeals from county court cases. Some circuits are made up of multiple counties.

Trial Courts – County

The Florida Constitution establishes that there is ONE county court in each of Florida’s 67 counties. The county courts are sometimes referred to as "the people's courts," probably because a large part of the courts' work involves voluminous citizen disputes, such as traffic offenses, less serious criminal matters (misdemeanors), and relatively small monetary disputes.

Jones v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 541 U.S. 369, 124 S. Ct. 1836, 158 L. Ed. 2d 645 (2004).
African-American former employees' hostile work environment, wrongful termination, and failure-to-transfer claims “ar[ose] under” the amendment to § 1981 contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and therefore, were governed by federal “catch-all” four-year statute of limitations period for claims “arising under an Act of Congress enacted” after December 1, 1990, as their causes of action were made possible by that Act; employees' claims alleged violations of the amended statute, and did not allege a violation of the pre-1990 version of § 1981. 28 U.S.C.A. § 1658(a); 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981.

Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 107 S. Ct. 1542, 95 L. Ed. 2d 55 (1987).
Former employee brought suit against former employer and its insurer alleging breach of contract, retaliatory discharge and wrongful termination of disability benefits. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan denied employee's motion to remand action to state court and entered judgment for defendants. The employee appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded with instructions. On certiorari, the Supreme Court held that: (1) employee's common-law contract and tort claims were preempted by ERISA and fell within provision establishing exclusive federal cause of action for resolution of suits by beneficiaries to recover benefits from covered plan; and (2) common law causes of action filed in state court preempted by ERISA which fell within scope of such provision were removable to federal court under the well-pleaded complaint rule.

Florida Circuits

District Courts of Appeal