stating that while “employee may not know the true reason for the employer’s adverse employment decision, or other facts that would tend to show the employer has behaved unlawfully!,] • • • ‘there is no requirement that the plaintiff actually know the specific type of legal claim he or she has, or that the injury constituted a breach of the appropriate legal standard’”
How later courts described this case
- stating that while “employee may not know the true reason for the employer’s adverse employment decision, or other facts that would tend to show the employer has behaved unlawfully!,] • • • ‘there is no requirement that the plaintiff actually know the specific type of legal claim he or she has, or that the injury constituted a breach of the appropriate legal standard’”
- noting that "the failure to use the right label does not result in a waiver"
- holding that using the incorrect label does not result in waiver when the contents of the argument were properly made in the trial court
- finding an issue sufficiently raised, despite the approach to waiver in Alexander, 24 S.W.3d at 272, because even though the party did not specifically mention “equitable estoppel” before the lower courts, it “discussed all the relevant facts” of the defense
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JANICE M. HOLDER, J.,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s conclusion that the discovery rule applies to retaliatory discharge cases. I also agree that the discovery rule does not save Fahrner’s action. I am unwilling, however, to join the majority in applying the doctrine of equitable estoppel as a basis for relief. I would therefore affirm the Court of Appeals’ dismissal of this case.
Fahrner consistently made one argument before the trial court, the Court of Appeals, and initially before this Court. He claimed that the discovery rule required tolling of the statute of limitations. He asserted the applicability of the doctrine of equitable estoppel only after this Court granted his application for permission to appeal.
Numerous Tennessee cases hold that an issue raised for the first time on appeal is waived. See, e.g., Norton v. McCaskill, 12 S.W.Sd 789, 795 (Tenn. 2000); Lawrence v. Stanford, 655 S.W.2d 927, 929 (Tenn. 1983) (noting, “It has long been the general rule that questions not raised in the trial court will not be entertained on appeal....”). We have recently reversed the Court of Appeals for considering the doctrine of equitable estoppel when that theory had not been raised before the trial court. Alexander v. Amnentrout, 24 S.W.3d 267, 272 (Tenn. 2000). The majority has attempted to explain why its application of the doctrine of equitable estoppel constitutes justice in this ease but was error when performed by the Court of Appeals in Armentrout. I find this explanation unconvincing. The trial court in this case committed no error in failing to rule on a theory it was never asked to consider. Accordingly, I would find any claim for relief based on equitable estoppel in this case to be waived and any relief granted on that basis to be unwarranted.