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93 N.M. 781

Forrester v. Parker

New Mexico Supreme Court

Decided February 11, 1980

New Mexico Supreme Court · decided 1980-02-11

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[T]he guide constituted an implied employment contract; the conditions and procedures provided in it bound both Forrester and Parker. The words and conduct of the parties here gave rise to this implied contract.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Boudar v. E.G. & G., Inc.

Relies on Trujillo v. Chavez · Roan Ex Rel. Roan v. D. W. Falls, Inc.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1980-02-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 65 later decisions — most recently August 2012 · most notably 115 Ill. 2d 482 - Duldulao v. Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital Center (1987), Melnick v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance (1988)

13 federal appellate · 11 district · 38 state decisions

4101980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1OPINION

EASLEY, Justice.

¶2Forrester appeals the entry of summary judgment against him in his suit alleging that he was unlawfully discharged from defendant Chaves County Community Action Program, Inc. (CAP) by Parker. We reverse.

¶3At issue is whether CAP’s personnel policy guide controlled the employee-employer relationship. The trial court held that it did not because Forrester was an employee at will who could be discharged even without cause. Therefore, Parker did not have to comply with the personnel policy guide’s guidelines when terminating Forrester.

¶4At the time Forrester started employment with CAP, this personnel policy guide was in effect. As provided by this guide, Forrester went through a probationary period, during which time he could have been discharged without cause. At the end of the probationary period, he was notified in writing that he had successfully completed it. Between March 1975 and March 1977, Forrester worked as a full time CAP employee. The letter of termination Forrester received in March 1977 recited that he was being terminated pursuant to paragraph XIX of the personnel policy guide. Parker stated in his deposition that the guide’s general goal and purpose was as a “guide in giving directions to the staff, and it is something they can refer to as something like a standard operating procedure, so far as policy is concerned.” Forrester alleges that his termination did not comport with the procedures spelled out in the guide.

¶5We think it clear that under these circumstances the guide did control the employee-employer relationship here in question. Forrester should have and did expect Parker to conform to the procedures for terminating him as spelled out in the guide. For the guide constituted an implied employment contract; the conditions and procedures provided in it bound both Forrester and Parker. The words and conduct of the parties here gave rise to this implied contract. Trujillo v. Chavez, 76 N.M. 703, 417 P.2d 893 (1966); Roan v. D.W. Falls, Inc., 72 N.M. 464, 384 P.2d 896 (1963).

¶6The trial court was wrong as a matter of law in holding that the personnel policy guide did not control the employee-employer relationship between Forrester and Parker/CAP. We do not address whether or not the procedures provided in the guide were complied with; only on the basis of a full evidentiary hearing or trial can that determination be made.

¶7We reverse and remand.

¶8IT IS SO ORDERED.

SOSA, C. J., and FELTER, J., concur.
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