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scharge. A constructive discharge occurs when an employer purposefully creates working conditions, which are so intolerable that an employee has no other option but to resign. See, e.g., Haubry v. Snow, 31 P.3d 1186, 1192-93 (Wash. Ct. App. 2001) (recognizing that to establish a claim for constructive discharge, a claimant must show: (1) that the employer deliberately made the working conditions intolerable for the claimant; (2) that a reasonable person in the claimant's position would be forced to resign; (3) that the claimant resigned solely because of the intolerable conditions; and (4) that the claimant suffered damages). Before the employment situation will be deemed intolerable, however, the adverse working conditions must be unusually "aggravated" or amount to a "continuous pattern" of negative treatment. Id. The essence of the test is whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the working conditions are so unusually adverse that a reasonable employee in plaintiff's position "'would have felt compelled to resign.'" Slack v. Kanawha County Housing Redevelopment Auth.,423 S.E.2d 547, 556 (W. Va. 1992) (quoting Calhoun v. Acme Cleveland Corp., 798 F.2d 559, 561 (1st Cir. 1986)) (discussing Massachusetts law). Put another way, the standard by which a constructive discharge is generally determined is an objective one: "whether a reasonable person faced with the allegedly intolerable employer actions or conditions of employment would have no reasonable alternative except to quit." Turner v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 32 Cal. Rptr. 2d 223, 228 (Cal. 1994), overruled on other grounds by Romano v. Rockwell Internat., Inc., 59 Cal. Rptr. 2d 20 (Cal. 1996).
In the present case, the averments contained in Clark's complaint are insufficient to allege that Cripe purposefully created a working condition so intolerable that Clark had no choice but to resign. See, e.g., Tutman v. WBBM-TV, Inc., 209 F.3d 1044, 1050 (7th Cir. 2000) (recognizing that the doctrine of constructive discharge is limited to egregious cases, such as, for example, where an employee is subjected to threats or repeated racist taunting), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1078 (2001). Rather, the allegations merely assert that Cripe refused to provide Clark-an installer and service technician of garage doors-with a safe vehicle and that, as a consequence, Clark resigned. Accordingly, the complaint in dispute fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. As such, the trial court erred by denying Cripe's motion to dismiss Clark's complaint.
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the trial court's denial of Cripe's motion to dismiss Clark's complaint and remand for judgment consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
FRIEDLANDER, J., concurs.
ROBB, J., dissents with separate opinion.
ROBB, Judge, dissenting
I respectfully dissent, as I believe Indiana should recognize the doctrine of constructive discharge as a defense that an at-will-employee can raise in the context of a common law retaliatory discharge claim brought against his employer.
The majority correctly notes that Indiana follows the doctrine of employment-at-will. Wior v. Anchor Indus., Inc., 669 N.E.2d 172, 175 (Ind. 1996). Under this doctrine, an employer can discharge an at-will-employee for any cause or no cause at all without incurring liability. Wilmington v. Harvest Ins. Companies, 521 N.E.2d 953, 955 (Ind. Ct. App. 1988). However, the employment-at-will doctrine has come under attack and has slowly been eroded by Indiana courts adopting several exceptions to it.
Our supreme court first recognized an exception to the employment-at-will doctrine in Frampton v. Cent
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