Alaska Employment Law

The Alaska Supreme Court (per Justice Winfree) has held that a disciplined employee may look to the employer’s subsequent discipline of other employees for comparison under the objective wing of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.  In so ruling, the Court relied on Title VII caselaw.  Because the trial judge (Richard  Erlich of Nome) had refused to consider evidence of those later disciplinary actions, the Court reversed his grant of summary judgment to the employer.

The Court also reversed the trial court’s summary judgment ruling that the employer had conducted an adequate internal investigation.  The employer “conceded that the implied covenant requires some minimal level of fairness to the employee during an employer’s investigation,” and the supervisor testified “that it would be ‘reasonable’ to ask an employee being investigated to tell his side of the story and acknowledged that he had not given [the employee] this opportunity.”  On that evidence, the court found a triable issue of fact on this part of the employee’s covenant claim.

Mitchell v. Teck Cominco, ___ P.3d ___, Op. No. 6310 (Alaska Sept. 26, 2008)

Ken Legacki represents the ex-employee. Sean Halloran, from Hartig Rhodes, represents the employer.