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Discharge for having firearms on company property
February 14, 2006 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo
An inevitable clash between a constitutional right to bear arms and a company policy forbidding possession of firearms in the parking lot. The company wins. Bastible v. Weyerhaeuser (10th Cir 02/13/2006)
Employees got fired when a vehicle search uncovered firearms. The company had a no-firearms policy, and the employees argued they had a constitutional right that was violated.
The employees argued that their discharge from employment violated Oklahoma public policy as declared in the Oklahoma constitutional provision on the right to keep and bear arms.
Just one problem with that argument. The Oklahoma constitution allows the legislature to regulate "the carrying of weapons," and a statute specifically allows employers to "control the possession of weapons" on property they own or control.
Here's how the 10th Circuit put it:
The district court described this issue as "whether a public policy cause of action for wrongful discharge may be maintained by Plaintiffs based upon the right to keep arms espoused by the Oklahoma Constitution." Order at 23, Appellants' App. at 627.(11) As the district court acknowledged, Oklahoma law recognizes a public policy exception to the otherwise virtually unfettered ability of an employer to terminate an at-will employee. "[T]he circumstances which present an actionable tort claim under Oklahoma law is where an employee is discharged for refusing to act in violation of an established and well-defined public policy or for performing an act consistent with a clear and compelling public policy." Burk v. K-Mart Corp., 770 P.2d 24, 29 (Okla. 1989). The Oklahoma Supreme Court has, however, cautioned that this "unique tort" applies "to only a narrow class of cases and must be tightly circumscribed." Clinton v. State ex rel. Logan County Election Bd., 29 P.3d 543, 545 (Okla. 2001). While the Oklahoma courts have not addressed the precise question of whether there is a clear and compelling public policy involving the right to bear arms, such that an at-will employee(12) may not be terminated when he exercises that right, we are confident that those courts would not embrace that view. As indicated, both the Oklahoma Constitution and the Oklahoma courts recognize that the right to bear arms is not unlimited, and, indeed, may be regulated. We agree with the district court that "[g]iven the finding by [the Oklahoma Supreme] Court that the right to keep arms is not unfettered, establishing a wrongful discharge tort for exercising a statutorily sanctioned restriction on the right would be counterintuitive." Order at 24, Appellants' App. at 628.
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Editor: Ross Runkel, Professor of Law Emeritus. email Ross@LawMemo.Com, Phone 503-399-8028. Copyright LawMemo, Inc.
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