While the calendar may read Valentine’s Day, I’ve tackled more than my fair share of love-themed posts in the past filled with roses and chocolates.
So instead, I’m going to go in a different direction entirely: Guns. (Though query whether the music group Guns ‘n’ Roses would care to disagree with me.)
See, there was this employee who worked at a car dealership wasn’t in love with guns. But he believed his supervisor was. So much so that, according to a complaint filed in state court, the supervisor would sit in “his office looking at and ordering guns.” The employee then observed that packages containing “guns, including AR-15s, clips, handguns, suppressors and [rifles]” were being delivered to work.
The employee raised the concern to the dealership’s owner. Later that date, the supervisor said allegedly told the employee to “stay the [expletive] out” of the supervisor’s business. Two days later, the employee was fired.
The employee brought suit claiming that he was wrongfully discharged in violation of a public policy in consideration of Conn. Gen. Stat. 31-49 — which requires employers to exercise reasonable care to provide employees with a reasonably safe place to work.
The Superior Court found that such a claim could survive a motion to strike. In doing so, it court concludes that there is an important public policy of having an employee “raising his concern over firearms in the employer’s workplace”.
The case, Schulz v. Auto World, is an important reminder that not all causes of actions are clearly spelled out in the law. Sometimes courts look to general principles to take the law in different directions.
In this instance, employers should take notice of the public policy articulated by the court that guns in the workplace in Connecticut are still to be considered unusual.