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Truchan v. Condumex6/21/2002
aying that the handbook may not "be construed as a contract for employment for any specified or definite period of time." In, perhaps, its strongest statement, the preface indicates that the handbook "does not guarantee benefits, working conditions or privileges of employment." Further, the preface provides Condumex with no less than four options for directly avoiding the policies and procedures published in the handbook: Condumex may create policies and procedures not contained in the handbook; Condumex may interpret and apply the handbook as it sees fit; Condumex management may decide not to apply the terms of the handbook; and Condumex may "modify, eliminate or add to any rule, policy or benefit" in the handbook.
The way Condumex applied the handbook was, at least in some respects, arguably somewhat contrary to the notion that it was not intended to define its relationship with its employees. The preface to the handbook indicates that it has "policies and procedures applicable" to employees and was "intended as a guide to govern the working relationship between" Condumex and its employees. In the concluding paragraph, the preface also notes that the version of the handbook dated November 1, 1994, was, at least at that time, the definitive statement on the employer-employee relationship, "superced " all other "understandings or agreements." Also, there is no evidence in the record that Condumex ever enacted a policy or procedure controlling severance pay outside of the handbook, altered the policies and procedures in the handbook, interpreted the language of the handbook to disallow severance pay, rescinded the severance pay policy, or took any action whatsoever to affect the severance policy in the handbook before plaintiffs left its employ.
Overall, this conduct illustrates the fact that the handbook was an effective way to define the employer-employee relationship, as Condumex had hoped. A circumstance in which Condumex would find it necessary to rely on the nonbonding nature of the handbook evidently never arose. However, nothing about Condumex's conduct expressly or impliedly altered the nature of the strong disclaimers in the preface to the handbook. Indeed, the handbook appears to have remained the definite statement on the employer-employee relationship even while Condumex was moving its operations in Michigan to Texas. There is no dispute in the record that the handbook preface - with its unambiguously strong disclaimers - remained as much an integral part of the handbook at the time plaintiffs left Condumex's employ as it was at the time Condumex drafted the handbook.
With this background, the initial relevant legal question still remains: did the handbook grant plaintiffs contractual rights to severance pay?
B. Toussaint And Its Limitations
The logical starting point for analysis in a "handbook case" such as this is the most famous handbook case of them all, Toussaint v Blue Cross & Blue Shield. There, the plaintiff was handed a manual of Blue Cross personnel policies which reinforced his belief that he would be with the company "as long as I did my job." The handbook stated that the disciplinary procedures applied to all Blue Cross employees who had completed their probationary period and that it was the "policy" of the company to release employees "for just cause only."
The Michigan Supreme Court held that a provision of an employment contract providing that an employee shall not be discharged except for cause is legally enforceable, although the contract is not for a definite term; that is, although the term is "indefinite." The Court then articulated two subcategories of this general proposition. The first subcategory
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