TexasCHLforum.com

dlh wrote:The Supreme Court of Texas is very pro-business and pro-employer.

In my opinion they would say "public policy" is a matter best left to the Texas legislature and is not something that should be legislated from the bench.

Utah's supreme court noted specifically that they don't draw public policy out of thin air, that it must be based on the constitution, laws, and previous court decisions. Because Utah has established strong support for self-defense in those areas, self-defense fell within one of the four public policy categories that the Utah court recognizes as superseding employer policies. The courts exist to decide whether and how the law applies to specific situations, and in Ray v Wal-Mart they found that self-defense was already covered by a public policy exception.

And, as warnmar10 noted, Utah is indeed at at-will state. But at-will employment is not without its bounds, and exceptions, even in Texas there are more exceptions than just "claims discrimination" (I assume that means worker's comp claims), including public policy exceptions. Just like Utah, at-will employment cannot be terminated for jury duty or reporting (or refusing to engage in) illegal conduct by the company. Also there are exceptions preventing termination for going on active duty, having wages garnished for child support, having declared bankruptcy, refusing to engage in or reporting patient dumping, and....lawfully having a gun locked in your car in the parking lot. Those are all established in law, and provide guidance on what kind of public policy exceptions exist.

Eugene Volokh notes how some other states have handled self-defense as a public policy exception: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... 6b7c9f8dbe

I misremembered/misread the original situation.

As I now understand it, the employees originally sued in Federal court for wrongful termination, arguing that Walmart's policy against self-defense could not be enforced and therefore their termination was illegal. The federal court ruled in in part for Walmart and in part for the plaintiffs. The federal court ruled that (under federal law) Walmart's termination of the employees was not in violation of the law or contract, BUT that the question of whether firing for self-defense is against Utah state public policy is a question for the State of Utah, and referred the case to the Utah Supreme Court.

The Utah court ruled that under State law/public policy, Walmart may not fire employees for self-defense, so it appears that ultimately the employees won their suit. I don't know what substantive result they got from this, e.g. damages, got their jobs back, or what.

A good part of the Utah court's decision seems to rest on the fact that Utah laws generally strongly support the right of self-defense in general. This would not be the case in certain other states, so the decision might come out very differently elsewhere.

Resurrecting my old thread.

In Ray v Walmart, the Utah Supreme Court decided that self-defense is good public policy and employers may not enforce rules or policy against it. So the employees won that part of their case, but I haven't tracked down yet if they won the overall termination suit at the federal level.

The court's ruling: https://law.justia.com/cases/utah/supre ... 30940.html

Some labor law website articles:

https://www.law360.com/articles/704696/ ... stices-say

https://www.constangy.com/employment-la ... -maybe-not

Actually, if you go read the case through,"it depends" is the current answer, at least in Utah.

The Volokh link (which was screwed up earlier, now fixed) explains some of this. Employers can draft rules, but they cannot fire for them if they contravene certain public policies. A crystal clear example is that an employer cannot legally fire or retaliate against an employee who refuses to perform an illegal act, or who reports illegal activity by the employer or coworkers.

Moving down the scale a bit, employers cannot retaliate for exercising certain rights and privileges, like filing for workers compensation. In some states at least, you cannot be fired for political activity or statements outside of employment. In some states, you cannot be fired for having a firearm locked in your car in the parking lot.

So the question going to the Utah Supreme Court is "can employers fire (which implies they can forbid) employees who otherwise legally defend themselves?"

If confronted by deadly force on the job, should it be legal for an employer to fire you for defending yourself? Or, if you want to keep your job, do you have to submit to deadly force and hope you live through it to keep that job? If's not like you can wait until you are off the job to decide whether to defend yourself or not.

Walmart seems to be trying to avoid this particular question by arguing that (in the first event that I described above), the shoplifter never threatened anyone and the employees prevented him from leaving (in violation of policy). The employees testified that they never impeded the shoplifter's ability to leave until he shoved a gun in one of the employee's ribs and they tackled him. (I think the guy in the third event loses however the USC decides).

A Utah case, filed in federal court, but re-directed to the Utah Supreme Court.

Ray v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (D. Utah Oct. 9, 2013)

Some explanation at Volokh Conspiriacy: http://www.volokh.com/2013/10/13/may-em ... f-defense/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (might want to read this first)

This case includes two different situations, at least on of which was discussed on texaschlforum.com when it happened, but I can't come up with the right search terms to distinguish it from the other bazillion and half "Walmart" and "self-defense" threads, so no link.

Some Walmart loss prevention employees took a suspected shoplifter to a room, whereupon he verified he was a shoplifter by pulling laptop out of his pants; he also produced a gun. According to the employees (but not according to Walmart - dispute on the facts here), the shoplifter threatened them with the gun. The Walmart employees restrained him, called the cops. The cops arrested the shoplifter, and Walmart fired the employees.

The fired employees are arguing that Walmart cannot legally fire them for exercising a legal right or privilige. See the Volokh link for an explanation of this, as well as links to other cases where employees argued (apparently at least part of the time successfully) that they may not be fired for defending themselves.