At-Will Employment - An Indiana Shield Law?
Indiana appears to enforce the at will employment doctrine even when the employer allegedly fails to actually pay withheld taxes to federal and state taxing authorities. Then, when the employee made a claim, the employer fired the employee.
The Indiana Supreme Court opinion, Myers v J. Myers Construction, Inc., No. 29504-0609-CV-326 (February 2007), does not provide any rationale for the decision other than a review of the stare decisis of Indiana. The stare decisis of Indiana was not so clear as to require such a conclusion. Indeed, the law of Indiana, like most states, makes actionable for wrongful termination a termination in retaliation for whistleblowing based on the illegal conduct of the employer. The failure of an employer to pay taxing authorities the wages withheld to pay those taxes seems to be about as violative of public policy as could be imagined and in most states would have justified a wrongful termination claim for termination in retaliation for reporting unpaid employment taxes.
Beyond the tax law implications, the other and more disturbing implication is that if an employer breaks the trust conferred on the employer by law to collect taxes and then fires the employee that reports it or makes a claim about it, the employer does so with impunity under the cloak of the at will doctrine in Indiana. Clearly, the at will doctrine was supposed to be an articulation and explanation of the employment contract. But, in Indiana, it is being distorted into some sort of shield law for employers.
