# Gram v. Liberty Mutual Insurance

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · December 9, 1981 · 384 Mass. 659

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9725870

## Case

- **Full name:** Robert E. Gram vs. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company & Others
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** December 9, 1981
- **Citations:** 384 Mass. 659; 429 N.E.2d 21; 115 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 4152; 1981 Mass. LEXIS 1496
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Nolan
- **Judges:** Hennessey, Wilkins, Liacos, Abhams, Nolan, Lynch
- **Cited by:** 233 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/9725870

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that bad faith may be established where “employer’s retaliatory discharge was its reaction to appropriate, socially desirable conduct of the employee”
- holding that the absence of good cause in terminating an at-will employee, without more, is insufficient to trigger liability for wrongful discharge
- explaining that the “absence of good faith need not be proved to the extent that there must be a showing of improper motive for the discharge”
- holding that the discharged employee was entitled to commissions from sales already made

## Opinion text

Nolan, J.
(dissenting in part, concurring in part, with whom Lynch, J., joins). I dissent only from part 2 of the opinion. The court should not impose a condition on parties to a contract which neither party had ever considered. Admittedly, there was no evidence of overreaching by Liberty of the kind which makes the cases of RLM Assocs. v. Carter Mfg. Corp., 356 Mass. 718 (1969), and Fortune v. National Cash Register Co., 373 Mass. 96 (1977), so readily distinguishable. Gram was not fired to permit Liberty to pocket renewal commissions. Somebody must service these accounts and be compensated for such efforts. The court has restructured an at-will employment agreement to reflect an imposed condition never heretofore recognized by this court and one of doubtful legitimacy.
We are not here charged with giving relief to a party under a statute which permits compensation for a discharge without cause. We are faced with an at-will agreement freely made by competent parties and terminated by one party in a manner not inconsistent with its terms.
An employer should be free to discharge an employee without cause and without liability attaching for future compensation based on past services where such right never vested in the employee and where it is conceded that absence of good cause is not to be equated with the presence of bad faith.
The opinion calls for a trier of fact to determine “damages, measured by the amount of renewal commissions Gram *675 reasonably could have expected to receive, reduced to reflect the proportion of his time that would reasonably have been expected to have been devoted to the servicing of those renewal policies.” The judge or jury must somehow factor into the computation of damages the possibility that the policy holder might die or cancel his policy with Liberty or that Gram might die. The court is ordering the trier of fact to engage in extravagant speculation. Pro dolor.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9725870. Public record. Not legal advice.