Attorney may not bring retaliatory discharge action against law firm

Law Reporter, May 1999

Attorney may not bring retaliatory discharge action against law firm.

Jacobson v. Knepper & Moga, PC., 706 N.E.2d 491(Ill. 1998).

The Supreme Court of Illinois held that an attorney who has been discharged by a law firm may not sue for retaliatory discharge.

Here, Jacobson, an associate attorney at a law firm, was terminated after notifying one of the firm's partners that the firm was filing consumer debt collection actions in the wrong venue. Jacobson sued the firm, alleging retaliatory discharge. The trial court denied defendant's motion to dismiss, but certified for interlocutory appeal the question of whether an attorney could maintain an action for retaliatory discharge against his employing law firm. The appellate court held plaintiff was not precluded from maintaining such an action.

Reversing, the state high court noted that to establish a cause of action for retaliatory discharge, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the discharge contravenes a clearly mandated public policy. The court emphasized that the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct required plaintiff to report defendant's illegal practices to an authority empowered to act on such violations. Therefore, the court reasoned, the public policy implicated by defendant's illegal practicesensuring debtor defendants due process and protecting their property-was adequately protected by the ethical obligations imposed by the professional conduct rules. Thus, expanding the tort of retaliatory discharge to attorneys employed by law firms was unnecessary.

Accordingly, the court remanded with directions that defendant's motion to dismiss be granted.

[Comment: See also Waldman v. NYNEX Corp., 14 IER Cases 1331 (New York County Sup. Ct., Jan. 21, 1999). There, an attorney employed by NYNEX alleged that he was fired as punishment for voicing concerns that the company might be violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. sec 1692 et seq. The trial court dismissed causes of action for breaches of ( 1 ) the duty of good faith and fair dealing and (2) the terms of plaintiff's employment. The court allowed other actions to stand, including one for breach of the NYNEX Code of Business Conduct, which required employees to report suspected illegal acts within the company and protected them against reprisal for doing so.]