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Nicholas v. Allstate Insurance Co.8/31/2000
On Writ of Certiorari to the Court of Appeal, Second Circuit, Parish of Caddo
This case concerns an employee's suit against his employer and a supervisor for intentional infliction of emotional distress associated with his termination of employment. We wanted to examine the judgment of the appellate court which affirmed an award of $850,000 for emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life, as well as $15,000 for loss of consortium, in light of our earlier pronouncement in White v. Monsanto, 585 So. 2d 1205 (La. 1991). We find that the appellate court erred in failing to find that the jury required specific instructions on the elements of liability recognized in White. After conducting a de novo review of the record in this limited regard, we reverse, finding that the evidence does not reach the high threshold for intentional infliction of emotional distress established in White.
FACTS
Rodney Nicholas ("Nicholas") began working on April 11, 1971, as an Allstate Insurance Company ("Allstate") agent in Shreveport, Louisiana. In its recruitment of Nicholas, Allstate presented him and his wife, Neva, with written materials and showed a filmstrip, "The Promise," which expounded upon the benefits of working for Allstate and explained his potential for earning substantial income from renewal commissions after he had developed a client base. Nicholas, who began his Allstate career as an agent in a booth at the Sears store in the St. Vincent Mall, signed an R-830 compensation agreement which outlined his commissions on new and renewal policies and further provided that either Nicholas or Allstate could terminate the agreement after giving written notice. Approximately ten years later on June 1, 1981, Nicholas signed an amended Allstate compensation agreement. The agreement maintained the right of either party to terminate after written notice. However, it further specified that Allstate would not terminate Nicholas' employment because of unsatisfactory work unless: (1) it notified him that his work was unsatisfactory and that his job was in jeopardy, and (2) he failed to upgrade his performance after being given a reasonable opportunity to improve.
In Allstate's Jackson, Mississippi region, which encompassed Shreveport, a three-tiered review process preceded agent termination. At each level of review, Allstate particularized goals to be reached within certain time periods. Initially, an agent was placed on Corrective Review and, if the agent failed to meet the goals set, he was moved to Unsatisfactory Review. Finally, if the agent failed to remove himself from Unsatisfactory Review, he was placed on Personal, "Job in Jeopardy," Review. Nicholas received annual performance reviews from Allstate, and on numerous occasions, Nicholas' district sales manager, Richard Ebbs ("Ebbs"), advised him that his production figures were not up to expectation. In August of 1984, Allstate's territorial sales manager, William Monie, Jr., ("Monie"), directed Ebbs to place Nicholas on Corrective Review for poor performance. After failing to meet the goals established for the first two tiers of review, Nicholas was placed on Personal Review on February 12, 1985, and was informed in writing that his job was in jeopardy.
Although Nicholas only achieved one of the assigned insurance production goals in the initial period set for job in jeopardy review, the territorial sales manager extended Nicholas' review period by thirty days because Ebbs failed to regularly meet with Nicholas as outlined in Allstate's obligation to the agent during this process.
Each stage of Nicholas' review process was marked with Nicholas' failure to achieve all of the goals that supervisory pe
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