Reference no: EM133534650
John Peterson began working for AT&T in October 2004. He was originally an hourly position covered by a collective bargaining agreement, which called for graduated disciplinary measures before a covered employee could be fired. He excelled in the position and, after about three years, was promoted to a salaried managerial position, which was not covered by any collective bargaining agreement. Even though he resigned from the union at that point and understood he would no longer by represented by the union or subject to the agreement, he claimed to "clearly remember" that his manager at the time assured him that graduated disciplinary measures still applied. AT&T both denied that Peterson was told the latter and claimed that there was no graduated disciplinary policy for salaried management employees.
That dispute was relevant because in October 2010 (at which point Peterson had been promoted twice and was serving as a national retail account executive), AT&T fired Peterson without any graduated discipline process. As a national retail account executive, Peterson was required to travel by car regularly in his territory, on average about 250 miles per week. Peterson was nominally fired for violating a company policy, included in AT&T's Code of Business Conduct, which required all employees "regardless of their job duties" to report "any driving-related offense that involves intoxication" and employees "whose job involves operation of a company-owned" or leased vehicle to "also report [a]ll tickets, citations, arrests, charges, convictions, guilty please. . . for any driving-related offense other than parking tickets, equipment violations or other non-moving violations." Peterson had several infractions encompassed by the latter.
Peterson had a contentious relationship with his immediate supervisor. While she was on leave in August 2010, Peterson made an off-hand comment to his acting supervisor that he had a poor driving record. That comment prompted the acting supervisor to investigate Peterson's driving record. That investigation uncovered Peterson's infractions, which he had otherwise not reported to AT&T. His supervisor fired him as a result. Peterson sued AT&T for breach of contract and wrongful termination. AT&T moved for summary judgment.