Altice, J.
Forrest Perkins was terminated from his employment as a police officer for Memorial Hospital of South Bend (the Hospital) and thereafter filed a complaint for wrongful termination. Although the Hospital identified the reason for his termination as theft of food from the Hospital’s cafeteria, Perkins contends that he was fired because, believing he had been subpoenaed, he testified at a former co-worker’s unemployment benefits appeal hearing. The Hospital filed a motion for summary judgment asserting that Perkins was an at-will employee and that because he was never actually subpoenaed to testify at the unemployment hearing, the public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine did not apply. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the Hospital. Perkins appeals, arguing that summary judgment was improperly granted.
We affirm.
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We find this case to be similar to that addressed by our Supreme Court in Baker v. Tremco Inc., 917 N.E.2d 650 (Ind. 2009). In Baker, an employee was terminated because he refused to participate in his employer’s competitive bidding practices given his mistaken belief that such practices were illegal. The Court found that the employer’s competitive bidding practices were in fact legal, and thus, the employee was lawfully terminated. The Baker Court held that the employee’s mistaken belief about the illegality of the company’s bidding practices was “not on par with the rights and obligations” that formed the basis for the discharge complaint in Frampton, and thus, such did not warrant expansion of the public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine. Baker, 917 N.E.2d at 656.
Like the employee’s honest belief in Baker, Perkins’s honest belief that he was subpoenaed to testify at an unemployment hearing is “not on par with the rights and obligations” that have been recognized as warranting an exception to the at-will employment doctrine. Perkins has not provided us with any other compelling reason to warrant judicial expansion of the public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine. Given the limited nature of the recognized exceptions to the at-will employment doctrine, we must therefore conclude that Perkins’s sincere yet mistaken belief that he had been subpoenaed does not fall with the public policy exception. The trial court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the Hospital.
Judgment affirmed.
Tavitas, J., concurs.
Kirsch, J. dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Co-workers who testify at Unemployment Compensation hearings provide essential services to claimants, employers and the claims process. Often, they are the only unbiased witnesses, and their testimony is essential to the process, to the parties and to correct decision-making by the Administrative Law Judges who hear the claims. The importance of such witnesses to the claims process is not related to, or dependent upon, whether a subpoena is issued to secure their attendance.
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Assuming the trial court was correct in finding that Memorial Hospital’s stated reason for the termination was false, it has suffered no consequence from its wrongful behavior. On the other hand, Officer Perkins testified truthfully and suffered a very significant consequence: he was terminated from his employment.
Common sense tells us that this is not good law.