# Gardner v. Loomis Armored, Inc.

> Washington Supreme Court · April 4, 1996 · 128 Wash. 2d 931

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4710978

## Case

- **Full name:** Certification From the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington in Kevin M. Gardner v. Loomis Armored, Inc.
- **Court:** Washington Supreme Court
- **Decided:** April 4, 1996
- **Citations:** 128 Wash. 2d 931; 913 P.2d 377; 11 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 993; 1996 Wash. LEXIS 109
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Guy
- **Judges:** Dolliver, Guy, Madsen
- **Cited by:** 200 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4710978

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding a “highest priority on protection of human life” to be a “fundamental public policy,” evidenced by a plethora of otherwise unrelated statutes and judicial opinions
- finding "public policy of saving persons from life threatening situations satisfies the clarity element" before it evaluated whether the public policy had been violated
- stating employer’s action was contrary to “human nature,” as “any decent person” would choose to break a work rule in order to save a life

## Opinion text

Guy, J.
(concurring) — I concur in the result reached by the majority because I believe it was a violation of public policy when the employer applied this work rule under the facts existing here in order to fire Mr. Gardner. I would not find this work rule to be in violation of public policy in a general sense. However, in this case Mr. Gardner was faced with the decision whether to break what is normally a sensible and reasonable rule for his own and his partner’s safety and save a woman’s life or adhere to the rule and watch a woman he knew be murdered in front of him while he sat safely in his truck with a gun in hand. It defies what I believe is true about human nature that anyone would be willing to watch a person die in order to comply with a company safety rule. I believe our nature *951 would cause any decent person, under these dire circumstances, to break the rule and save the life. Even normally good rules must have exceptions and yield to a higher good. "When the company chose to enforce the rule under these facts, it failed to recognize that Mr. Gardner was acting for the higher good, as would any right-thinking person.
Durham, C.J., concurs with Guy, J.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4710978. Public record. Not legal advice.