AGE DISCRIMINATION
The Georgia Supreme Court has answered two questions
from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and found that an at-will employee
can not sue in tort for wrongful discharge based on age discrimination. Reilly
v. Alcan Aluminum Corp., et al., No. S99Q1590.
Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court.
Richard Reilly worked for Alcan Aluminum Ltd. ("Alcan") from 1974
through 1994 when Alcan terminated Reilly's employment. Reilly was an employee
at-will. Reilly filed a complaint in the Northern District of Georgia, alleging
that Alcan violated the Federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and
Georgia's age discrimination statute, OCGA § 34-1-2, when it terminated his
employment. Reilly's claimed that his age impermissibly influenced Alcan's
decision to terminate him and that this was also a breach of a state imposed
public duty under OCGA§ 51-1-6 (if there is no specific cause of action, a
person may recover if he is harmed by another who breached a legal duty,) and
private duties under OCGA§ 51-1-8, (a person may have a cause of action if they
are harmed by another who violated a private duty.)
The district court dismissed Reilly's complaint for failure to state a claim
upon which relief could be granted, ruling, among other things, that the Georgia
statutes that Reilly relied upon did not create a cause of action for an alleged
underlying violation of Federal or state age discrimination statutes. The
district court based its dismissal on the ground that Reilly was an employee
at-will. An at-will employee may be terminated for any reason and the employee
may not recover in tort for wrongful discharge. The court reasoned that since §
51-1-6 and § 51-1-8 do not specifically create exceptions to the at-will
employee doctrine, Reilly could not recover in tort under Georgia law for his
discharge.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit certified the
following two questions to the Supreme Court of Georgia: 1) Does OCGA § 51-1-6
or § 51-1-8 authorize a claim for breach of a legal duty when the breach is the
alleged violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)? 2) Does
OCGA § 51-1-6 or § 51-1-8 authorize a claim for breach of a legal duty when
the breach is the alleged violation of the state age discrimination statute?
"We conclude that Reilly's status as an at-will employee is dispositive
of the certified questions, and requires that we answer both questions in the
negative, "wrote Justice Sears.
"Because the inability of an at-will employee to sue in tort for
wrongful discharge is a fundamental statutory rule governing employer-employee
relations in Georgia; because the General Assembly did not specifically provide
a civil action as a remedy when enacting Georgia's age-discrimination act,
although it has specified such remedies in other areas of employer-employee
relations; and because the specific provisions of § 34-7-1 and § 34-1-2 must
control over the more general tort provisions of § 51-1-6 and § 51-1-8, we
conclude that the General Assembly did not intend for age-discrimination to
provide the basis for a tort of wrongful discharge in this State. We therefore
conclude that the general tort provisions of § 51-1-6 and § 51-1-8 cannot be
read so as to create a civil action for age discrimination based upon a
violation of either § 34-1-2 or the ADEA."
Certified questions answered in the negative. All of the Justices concurred.
