Gantt v. Sentry Insurance Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained

Gantt v. Sentry Insurance | 824 P.2d 680 (1992)

The at-will employment doctrine provides that an employer can terminate an employee for any reason or for no reason at all. But there are some big exceptions to this doctrine, including the public-policy exception. California’s highest court considered what sources of public policy can support an at-will employee’s wrongful termination claim in Gantt versus Sentry Insurance.

In September of nineteen seventy-nine, Vincent Gantt started working as a sales manager for the Sacramento office of Sentry Insurance. In January of the following year, Joyce Bruno started working as a liaison between trade associations and Sentry’s Sacramento and Walnut Creek offices. In that capacity, Bruno reported to both Gantt and his Walnut Creek counterpart, Gary Desser. Shortly after being hired, Bruno approached Gantt and informed him that Desser was sexually harassing her. Gantt reported the harassment to Sentry headquarters, but nothing happened. After Gantt reported the ongoing harassment for a second time, Sentry transferred Bruno and eventually fired her.

Bruno filed a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, or D F E H, alleging harassment by Desser and failure by Sentry to act on her complaints. During the course of the D F E H investigation, Sentry’s in-house counsel, Caroline Fribance, pressured Gantt to deny that he ever reported the harassment problem to Sentry headquarters. Gantt refused to give into the pressure and told the truth to the D F E H investigator. Not long after that, Sentry demoted Gantt from sales manager to sales representative and refused to give him a book of existing accounts to start his new job. Without the book of existing accounts, it was basically impossible for Gantt to succeed.

Gantt resigned and then sued Sentry for wrongful termination based on the public-policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine. Specifically, Gantt alleged that Sentry constructively terminated his employment in retaliation for his refusal to give false information to or withhold information from the D F E H investigator. The trial court decided that the termination violated public policy and entered judgment in Gantt’s favor. The court of appeal affirmed, and Sentry appealed to the California Supreme Court.




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