Idaho Law Blog

By Lane V. Erickson, Attorney

The termination of an employee will be controlled by either an existing employment contract or Idaho’s “at will” doctrine.  However, regardless of which of these applies to the employment relationship, it is illegal for an employer to terminate an employee in violation of public policy.

According to the Idaho Supreme Court, the right to discharge an at-will employee may be limited by considerations of public policy, such as when the motivation for the firing contravenes public policy.  Jackson v. Minidoka Irrigation Dist., 98 Idaho 330 333, 563 P.2d 54, 57 (1977).  Public policy of the state of Idaho is found in its constitution and statutes.  Boise-Payette Lumber Co. v. Challis Independent School Dist. No. 1 of Custer County, 46 Idaho 403, 268 P. 26 (1928).  The public policy expressed therein may serve as a basis for finding an exception to the employment at-will doctrine.  See generally, 82 Am.Jur.2d Wrongful Discharge § 19, at 692 (1992). The determination of what constitutes public policy sufficient to protect an at-will employee from termination is a question of law.  Quiring v. Quiring, 130 Idaho 560, 566, 944 P.2d 695, 701 (1997).

By Lane V. Erickson, Attorney

Both Idaho law and applicable Federal Law require that an employer pay an employee for all hours worked. Sometimes it is clear what is considered on duty time.  However, sometimes it is not.  In Idaho, hours worked does not include:

• time to be spent by an employee travelling to and from the workplace, in productive work preparation, changing clothes prior to and after a work shift, taking showers, attaining and returning work tools and equipment, when a business, industry, plant, mine, factory or workplace has a custom or practice of treating such time as non-compensable time;

By Lane V. Erickson, Attorney

In Idaho, employers have a duty to protect others from the foreseeable harmful conduct of its employees.  The two types of cases that are usually brought against an employer when an employee engages in intentionally harmful conduct to others are negligent hiring and negligent supervision.

In the negligent hiring area Idaho has few cases.  One worth discussing is Doe v. Garcia, et al., 131 Idaho 578 (1998).  In Doe, the employee worked for a hospital as a respiratory therapist.  However, the hospital, in hiring the employee, failed to request the employee’s personnel file from his previous employer.  In failing to obtain this personnel file, the hospital failed to learn that the employee had been fired from his previous job because he had sexually molested a patient at his previous job.  While working for the hospital, the employee admitted to a staff member the reason for his previous termination.  However, the hospital took no further action.  While working, the employee treated Doe, who was a minor and developed a friendship with him.  The employee was later discharged by the hospital for encouraging under-aged employees to consume alcohol.  After his termination, the employee sexually molested Doe.  Doe filed suit against the hospital alleging that it was negligent in hiring the employee.  The district court ruled in favor of the hospital.  Doe appealed.  The Idaho Supreme Court reversed and remanded the matter to the district court for further proceedings stating that a genuine issue existed as to whether the hospital was liable and whether it should have foreseen that the employee would use his position within the hospital that would lead to the molestation of Doe.