McDonald
worked for Mobil.He got
fired, or was supposedly forced to resign, due to rumors of sexual
harassment.McDonald sued
Mobil, claiming that his employee handbook constituted a contract and that
Mobil was in breach.
The
employee handbook specifically said, "It is not a comprehensive
policy and procedures manual, nor an employment contract."
The
Trial Court granted summary judgment to Mobil, and McDonald appealed.
The
Wyoming Supreme Court reversed and remanded to see if promissory
estoppel applied to the
situation.Then Mobil made a
motion for rehearing.
The
Wyoming Supreme Court looked at the disclaimers in the handbook, and found
that they are inadequate to prevent confusion.
The
handbook itself didn't say that it wasn't binding on the employer, and a
reasonable person could get confused and think that it was.
Therefore
the disclaimers were held to not be binding on McDonald.
The
Court considered the objective versus subjective interpretation issue.
It
doesn't matter if Mobil didn't subjectively intent to make a contract with McDonald if a reasonable person
in McDonald's shoes would think that Mobil did make a contract, this is
the objective theory.
The
Courts have to decide whether there's any possibility that a reasonable
person could think such a thing.If there is, then the question should be allowed to go to a jury.
The
Court found that McDonald was led to believe that Mobil would be bound by
its own employee handbook procedures in dealing with the harassment
allegations.Instead, Mobil
thought it had retained the right to fire McDonald at any time for any
reason.
There
was a concurring opinion and two dissents.
The
concurring opinion said the Court should say as a matter of law that
Mobil's employee handbook constituted a legally binding promise from
Mobil to McDonald and that the only issue for the trial court should be
Mobil should have been forbidden from firing McDonald without cause.
One
dissent said that there's nothing more that Mobil could have done to make
the employee know that they didn't intend to enter an employment
contract.This dissent said
that the Court's decision could conceivably outlaw at-will employment,
and that this is bad from a policy standpoint.
The
other dissent says that in the previous hearing of the case, the issue
was whether promissory estoppel
could apply, but now the issue is whether the employee handbook is a
binding contract.This
dissent says that there is no contract.
