Brandi's Hope Cmty. Serv. v. Walters

391 So.3d 162

BRANDI’S HOPE COMMUNITY SERVICES, LLC, Wanda Keith and Danny O. Cowart

v.Heather Denice WALTERS

NO. 2022-CT-00188-SCT

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

05/09/2024

LEE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, HON. JOHN R. WHITE, JUDGE

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANTS: MARK NOLAN HALBERT, BRANDI SOPER DOSS, Tupelo

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: JIM WAIDE, Tupelo

EN BANC.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI

COLEMAN, JUSTICE, FOR THE COURT:

¶1. Heather Walters was terminated from her job at Brandi’s Hope Community Services. The County Court of Lee County found the termination eligible for legal recourse under the public policy exception established in McArn v. Allied Bruce-Terminix Co., Inc., 626 So. 2d 603 (Miss. 1993). The Circuit Court of Lee County affirmed on appeal, but the Court of Appeals reversed and rendered, finding a conflict between McArn and Mississippi Code Section 43-47-37. Brandi’s Hope Cmty. Servs., LLC v. Walters, No. 2022-CA-00188-COA, — So.3d —, —, 2023 WL 4071594, at *16 (¶ 84) (Miss. Ct. App. June 20, 2023).

¶2. Walters petitioned the Court for certiorari to answer two questions:

(1) Whether the Mississippi Vulnerable Persons Act modified this Court’s decision in McArn.

(2) Whether the disclosure of a photograph of a resident of a personal care home for the purpose of documentation of abuse of that resident violates the privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

¶3. Having determined that there is no conflict between our holding in McArn and Section 43-47-37, we reverse that portion of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. The judgments of the County and Circuit Court of Lee County are affirmed in part and reversed in part. The case is remanded to the county court for further proceedings. Because we find the first question dispositive, we decline to reach the second question.

FACTS

¶4. On the morning of March 16, 2017, Heather Walters arrived to work her shift at Brandi’s Hope Community Services, LLC. Brandi’s Hope is a long-term-care facility for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Walters was employed as a Direct Support Professional. The role of a Direct Support Professional is to assist the residents with their daily needs.

¶5. John (not the patient’s real name) is a resident in his early twenties who suffers from cerebral palsy and mental retardation. He has the mental capacity of a five-or six-year-old. When John woke up on the morning of March 16, Walters noticed that his face was bruised and that he had black eyes. John said that Toney Burns was the person who had hit him. Burns was another Direct Support Professional employed by Brandi’s Hope.

¶6. Walters called her immediate supervisor, Caleb Texidora, and site manager, Wanda Keith, to report the incident per company policy. Neither answered. She then took a picture of John’s injured face with her personal cell phone and texted it to Texidora and Keith, along with a message describing what had occurred. The texts did not go through. Later that morning, Keith returned Walter’s call and told her that she would look into it.

¶7. Walters finished her shift at 8:00 a.m. and left the facility. She went to Frankie Crump’s house. Crump was a friend and former coworker from Brandi’s Hope. Walters told her about the incident and asked if there was anyone else that she needed to report to. Additionally, Walters allowed Crump to take a picture of the picture of John she had on her phone. Walters said she did so because she was having trouble getting the picture to send through text messages on her phone.

¶8. Keith investigated the incident over the next two days. As part of her investigation, she interviewed all the witnesses. When she interviewed Walters, Walters told her that she did not "take a picture of John and send it to a former staff." As part of her training, Walters had been told that taking a picture of residents was against company policy and violated HIPAA regulations.

¶9. Danny Cowart is the founder and CEO of Brandi’s Hope. On March 20, after reviewing Keith’s investigation, Cowart terminated Walters for "violation of company policy." At trial, Cowart testified that he based his decision to terminate Walters on her sharing the picture with Crump and later denying it.

¶10. Walters filed suit in the County Court of Lee County against Brandi’s Hope and Cowart for retaliatory discharge and malicious interference with employment, respectively. At the close of trial, defendants moved for directed verdicts, and the court denied them. The jury returned a verdict finding both Brandi’s Hope and Cowart liable and awarding $100,000 in compensatory damages. The damages were for "loss of income" and "damages for mental anguish, stress, or loss of enjoyment of life."

¶11. The defendants appealed the verdict first to the Lee County Circuit Court; the circuit court affirmed. Afterwards, the Court of Appeals reversed and rendered, holding that the defendants were entitled to directed verdicts in their favor. Walters, — So.3d at —, 2023 WL 4071594, at *16 (¶ 84). The Court of Appeals further held that the abuse reporting procedures included in the Mississippi Vulnerable Persons Act, codified in Mississippi Code Section 43-47-37, and our holding in McArn, 626 So. 2d 603, were in conflict, and therefore Walters was ineligible for the public policy exception to at-will employment discussed in McArn. Walters, — So.3d at —, 2023 WL 4071594, at *12 (¶ 61). The court also held that there was insufficient evidence to support the malicious-interference-with-employment verdict against Cowart. Id. at —, 2023 WL 4071594, at *16 (¶ 83).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

[1–3] ¶12. "This Court reviews matters of law de novo." R. P. v. State (In re Int. of J.P.), 151 So. 3d 204, 208 (¶ 9) (Miss. 2014). "Statutory interpretation, of course, is a matter of law." King v. Miss. Dep’t of Child Prot. Servs. (In re Int. of E.K.), 249 So. 3d 377, 381 (¶ 16) (Miss. 2018) (citing 5K Farms, Inc. v. Miss. Dep’t of Revenue, 94 So. 3d 221, 225 (¶ 14) (Miss. 2012)). "Our standard of review of a trial court’s grant of a J.N.O.V., a peremptory instruction and a directed verdict is de novo[.]" White v. Stewman, 932 So. 2d 27, 32 (¶ 10) (Miss. 2006)

ANALYSIS

I. Mississippi At-Will Employment and the McArn Exceptions

[4–6] ¶13. The Court has long recognized Mississippi’s at-will employment law. "[A]n agency to do particular services from time to time, to be paid for as the services are rendered, and without any agreement as to the time of its continuance, is determinable at the pleasure of either party." Butler v. Smith, 35 Miss. 457, 464 (Miss. 1858). The default rule is that employers may fire employees "for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all, excepting only reasons independently declared legally impermissible." McArn, 626 So. 2d at 606 (quoting Shaw v. Burchfield, 481 So. 2d 247, 253-54 (Miss. 1985)). When an employer fires an employee for a reason declared legally impermissible, that employer is liable to the employee via a claim of wrongful termination.

[7–9] ¶14. In McArn, the Court established two narrow public policy exceptions to the general rule of at-will employment. McArn, 626 So. 2d at 607.

(1) An employee who refuses to participate in an illegal act as in Laws [v. Aetna Finance Co., 667 F. Supp. 342 (N.D. Miss. 1987),] shall not be barred by the common law rule of employment at will from bringing an action in tort for damages against his employer; (2) an employee who is discharged for reporting illegal acts of his employer to the employer or anyone else is not barred by the employment at will doctrine from bringing action in tort for damages against his employer.

Id. It is in the public interest for employees to be able to refuse to commit illegal acts ordered by their employers and to report illegal acts committed by their employers without fear of being fired. The enumerated exceptions further the interest. "[I]f the state makes certain conduct illegal, it would be in the best interest of the state to encourage employees to refrain from breaking the law at the request of their employers by providing them a remedy should they be discharged for refusing to obey their employers’ illegal commands." Laws, 667 F. Supp. at 348 (quoting 9 A.L.R. 4th 329, 332, superseded by 105 A.L.R. 5th 351).

[10–12] ¶15. The McArn Court intended the narrow exception to apply comprehensively. The reporting employee may report the illegal actions to their "employer or anyone else." McArn, 626 So. 2d at 607 (emphasis added). The exceptions "apply even where there is ‘privately made law’ governing the employment relationship, where the illegal activity either declined by the employee or reported by him affects third parties among the general public, though they are not parties to the lawsuit." Id. Once the threshold of illegal action or solicitation of illegal action is crossed, the protection provided by the narrow exception is broad.

¶16. In 1987, six years before McArn was decided, twenty-five states, including eight southern states, had public policy exceptions to their at-will employment doctrines. Laws, 667 F. Supp. at 347. That number has risen to at least forty-four states since McArn was handed down. In the majority of the states, the public policy exceptions were created by the high court of the state. In other states, the exception was created statutorily. See, e. g., Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 26, § 833; Ala. Code § 36-25-24.

¶17. The first recognized source for the concept of the doctrine of at-will employment is Horace Gray Wood’s A Treatise on the Law of Master and Servant: Covering the Relation, Duties and Liabilities of Employers and Employees published in 1877.

With us the rule is inflexible, that a general or indefinite hiring is prima facie a hiring at will, and if the servant seeks to make it out a yearly hiring, the burden is upon him to establish it by proof. A hiring at so much a day, week, month or year, no time being specified, is an indefinite hiring, and no

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