 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Martinez v. Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative6/12/2002
ministered the payroll, NORA's former manager never objected to the continued accrual of Martinez's sick leave. Narciso Rendon, another longtime NORA employee with a large accumulation of sick leave, was also exempted from the 1986 policy change. Retiring a few years before Martinez, Rendon was paid for all of his unused sick leave at his current hourly rate. Rendon left work in 1988, but remained on the payroll for an additional five months, drawing from his accrued sick leave balance, at which point the remaining balance was redeemed in full at his current pay rate. Both NORA's former manager and the Board were aware of how Rendon was compensated for his sick leave at retirement and did not object. Martinez testified that she had fully expected to be paid in the same manner as Rendon, and she alerted Maez to her expectation. Martinez also testified that, about two years before she retired, Maez directed her to start accruing money in a special account for the purposes of paying her upon retirement. Although Maez told Martinez that he thought Rendon had been overpaid, he did not, prior to Martinez's last week of employment, inform her that her sick leave would not be redeemed, as she anticipated, in the same way that Rendon's sick leave had been redeemed. In response to Martinez's queries about her sick leave redemption, Maez told her that NORA would pay it "as it does any other bill." Martinez was not informed that she would not be paid in the manner she expected until a few days before she retired.
Based on the representations and conduct of various NORA personnel, a reasonable jury could have agreed with Martinez's expectation that she would be paid for all of her sick leave, at her full current base rate, just as Rendon had been. See Hartbarger, 115 N.M. at 671, 857 P.2d at 782; Newberry, 108 N.M. at 427, 773 P.2d at 1234. Substantial evidence supports the jury's determination that NORA breached its implied contract with Martinez, as well as the jury's award of contract damages based upon that reasonable expectation.
Emotional Distress Damages
NORA argues that the trial court erred, as a matter of law, in permitting recovery for emotional distress damages. Such an award, NORA contends, cannot be supported by any of the three theories advanced by Martinez: implied contract, prima facie tort, and constructive fraud. We discuss each of those theories, in turn, to determine whether they can support an award of emotional distress damages. For the reasons that follow, we do not find support in any of the three possible theories, and therefore, we conclude that emotional distress damages should not have been submitted to the jury.
Breach of Implied Contract As a general rule, "damages for emotional distress are not recoverable in an action for breach of an employment contract, whether express or implied, in the absence of a showing that the parties contemplated such damages at the time the contract was made." Silva v. Albuquerque Assembly & Distribution Freeport Warehouse Corp., 106 N.M. 19, 20, 738 P.2d 513, 514 (1987) (stating that the purpose, in an action for breach of an employment contract, is to restore to the plaintiff what was lost by the breach). NORA relies on that general rule to strike the award of emotional distress damages in this case.
Martinez refers us to Flores v. Baca, 117 N.M. 306, 871 P.2d 962 (1994), involving a breach of contract with a funeral home, for the proposition that emotional distress damages are allowable when "peace of mind" is an implied part of the contract. Id. at 311, 871 P.2d at 967 (holding that surviving family members may be implied-in-fact intended beneficiaries of funeral and burial contracts). We are
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 New Mexico Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|