In late June, a divided Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the rejection of Cuyahoga County’s political subdivision immunity defense on a false light claim brought by a former employee. The Court found that former employees fit within the immunity statute’s exception when the claims arose out of the employment relationship and plaintiffs were not required to still be employed when filing the claim. Further, the Court found that the public statements made about her termination were sufficiently related to her employment to be covered by the statutory exception to subdivision’s tort immunity. Piazza v. Cuyahoga Cty., No. 2019-Ohio-2499. “There is no temporal limitation in R.C. 2744.09(B) that requires an ongoing employment relationship, either at the time a plaintiff’s claim against a political-subdivision employer accrued or at the time the plaintiff filed the claim against her political-subdivision employer. There must, however, be a causal connection between the claim and the plaintiff’s employment relationship, whether ongoing or terminated, with the political-subdivision employer.”
According to the Court’s opinion, the media had reported on alleged mismanagement and corruption in the department where the plaintiff had once worked. She was transferred two months later and then, along with two other former co-workers, was terminated seven months after that. The County announced that their termination was related to a reorganization of her prior department. The County later explained that it could not justify keeping the terminated employees in their new jobs in order to protect their job security and claimed that the former administration had reassigned rather than fired them. The plaintiff filed suit against the County on the grounds that the reckless statements created the false inference that she was involved in the alleged corruption. The County moved for summary judgment on the grounds of, among other things, that it was immune from her claims, which arose after her employment had been terminated.
The Court did not address the merits of the plaintiff’s substantive claims. False light claims are actionable, even if the statements are not defamatory, when:
[O]ne who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy if (a) the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed.
As explained by the Court, the Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act at R.C. 2744
initially sets out a broad, general rule that a political subdivision is not liable in damages in civil actions for injury, death or loss to person or property caused by an act or omission in connection with a governmental or proprietary function.But it also contains a number of statutory exceptions, including one for claims arising out of employment at R.C. 2744.09(B), which provides that the Act
does not apply to, and shall not be construed to apply to * * * [c]ivil actions by an employee * * * against his political subdivision relative to any matter that arises out of the employment relationship between the employee and the political subdivision.
The Court agreed to address the following questions:
whether R.C. 2744.09(B) requires an ongoing employment relationship between the plaintiff and the political-subdivision employer, either at the time the plaintiff’s claim accrued or at the time the plaintiff filed her complaint—and a factual question—whether Piazza’s false-light claim is relative to a matter that arises out of her employment relationship with the county.
The County argued that “because the alleged tortious
conduct—the statement by FitzGerald—occurred after the county terminated
Piazza’s employment, her claim does not arise out of her employment
relationship with the county.” The Court
rejected the County’s argument because the statute does not limit the exception
to claims that arose during the course
of the employee’s employment and thus, could apply to “any claim” of a former
employee that “arises out of the employment relationship.”
A claim “ ‘arises out of the employment relationship’ ” between an employee and a political-subdivision employer “ ‘if there is a causal connection or a causal relationship between the claims raised by the employee and the employment relationship.’ . . . The test under R.C. 2744.09(B) is one of causal connection, not of timing.
. . . . because the phrase “arises out of” refers to the existence of a causal connection, the phrase, read in the context of the entire statute, requires only that there have been a causal connection between the claim and the employment relationship, whether or not the employment relationship was continuing or had terminated. We conclude that R.C. 2744.09(B) does not require that the alleged tortious conduct underlying a claim against a political subdivision have occurred during the plaintiff’s employment by the political subdivision.The Court found more plausible the County’s argument that the lawsuit must be filed by a current employee, but ultimately found the statute to be ambiguous on that point. No court had ever construed the statute to require the employee to still be employed before filing suit. Moreover, again, the General Assembly’s failed to explicitly require the lawsuit to be filed while the employees was still employed. The County’s argument would lead to inequitable results when the General Assembly had commanded that the Act be construed to lead to “just and reasonable” results.
Reading the word “employee” in R.C. 2744.09(B) as requiring an ongoing employment relationship at the time a plaintiff files an employment-related claim against her political-subdivision employer would give rise to an unreasonable result. As the Eleventh District has astutely noted, such a reading “would encourage employers to terminate employees to avoid potential liability when an incident has occurred.” Fleming at ¶ 31. It is unreasonable to presume that the General Assembly intended to incentivize an employer to terminate an employee who may have an employment-related claim to preserve its entitlement to political subdivision immunity.
Accordingly, the Court held “that R.C. 2744.09(B) does not
require that a plaintiff have been employed by the political subdivision
employer at the time she filed her lawsuit.”
The plaintiff’s claims related to statements about the termination of her employment and connected her to a scandal relating to her former employment. “Termination of employment is a matter that arises out of the employment relationship.” Indeed, the only relationship between her and the speaker was an employment relationship.
The statement attributed to FitzGerald was directly related to Piazza’s performance, her employment with the county, and the county’s termination of her employment. Neither Piazza’s termination nor FitzGerald’s statement explaining why she was terminated could have occurred absent an employment relationship between Piazza and the county. . . . Piazza’s claim is relative to a matter that arises out of her employment relationship with the county.
NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can change or be amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.
