Flenker v. Willamette

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
DEC 23 1998
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk
DAVID FLENKER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 96-3242
WILLAMETTE INDUSTRIES, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
(D.C. No. 95-2480-KHV)
Stephen J. Dennis, Dennis, Stanton & Redlingshafer, L.L.C., Fairway, Kansas,
for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Rody P. Biggert (Andrew M. Altschul with him on briefs), Seyfarth, Shaw,
Fairweather & Geraldson, Chicago, Illinois, for Defendant-Appellee.
Before HENRY , LUCERO , and MILES-LAGRANGE , * Circuit Judges.
HENRY , Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from a summary judgment entered in favor of an
*
The Honorable Vicki Miles-LaGrange, United States District Judge
of the Western District of Oklahoma, sitting by designation.
employer, Willamette Industries, Inc. (“Willamette”), in a tort action under
Kansas law for retaliatory discharge. The district court held that plaintiff-
appellant Mr. Flenker's retaliatory discharge claim was precluded because section
11(c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (“OSHA”), 29 U.S.C. § 660 (c)
(1994), provided him an adequate alternative remedy. Mr. Flenker appealed.
Because we determined that resolution of the appeal turned on an unsettled
issue of Kansas law, we certified the following question to the Kansas Supreme
Court: “Does the remedy provided by OSHA § 11(c) for employees who allege
that they have been discharged in retaliation for filing complaints under that
statute preclude the filing of a Kansas common law wrongful discharge claim
under Kansas's public policy exception to at-will employment?” The Kansas
Supreme Court, under the facts submitted to it in our certification, answered
“no.” Flenker v. Willamette Industries, Inc. , No. 80408, 1998 WL 771624, at *5,
*10 (Kan. Nov. 6, 1998) .
Applying the Kansas Supreme Court's answer here, we hold that OSHA §
11(c) does not preclude Mr. Flenker's Kansas common law wrongful discharge
claim. Thus, with the benefit of this decision previously unavailable to the
district court, we now VACATE the grant of summary judgment to Willamette
and REMAND for further proceedings.
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