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61 Mercer L. Rev. 551 (2009-2010)
The Public Policy Exception to Employment at-Will: Time to Retire a Noble Warrior

handle is hein.journals/mercer61 and id is 561 raw text is: The Public Policy Exception to Employment At-Will: Time to Retire a Noble Warrior? by Kenneth I. Swift* I. INTRODUCTION An armored car driver leaves his truck in violation of company rules to help save a woman from a knife-wielding attacker and is terminated. A campus security guard is called to a scene where a man is lifting a woman; he mistakenly believes it is an attack, arrests the man, and is terminated. A nurse is invited on a camping weekend by her supervisor, refuses to take part in a bawdy dance, and is terminated. A woman, asked by her employer to sign a statement indicating she acted inappropriately at work, requests to meet with a lawyer first and is terminated.1 Each of the above employees brought suit claiming they were improperly terminated. Two prevailed; two did not. All claims were based upon what is commonly known as the public policy exception to the employment at-will rule. Among the social changes brought about by the various civil rights movements of the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond, were numerous statutory exceptions preventing employers from terminating or failing to hire * Legal Writing Instructor, Hamline University School of Law. Hamline University School of Law (J.D., 1995). 1. Each of these cases is discussed at length in Section V of this Article.

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