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Pennsylvania has demonstrated a strong reluctance to depart from the ancient and timetested rule of employment-at-will. In the 1970s, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court published dicta in one or two of its decisions that seemed to suggest that the tort of wrongful discharge was about to blossom in that commonwealth’s common law. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting in Pennsylvania, developed and shaped this cause of action. Then, perhaps to these federal judges’ dismay, in the 1990s, the high court of Pennsylvania issued opinions that virtually took these legal developments back to square one.

Are there any laws not on the Obama agenda that you would like to put there? Do you believe that free trade is a benefit or a detriment to American workers in the long run? To organized labor? 17 C H A P T E R Common Law Judge-made law as opposed to statutes and ordinances enacted by legislative bodies. 2 Employment Contracts and Wrongful Discharge This chapter and the one that follows are a survey of several major areas of the law where the federal and state legislatures have not fully populated the field with statutes and, therefore, the courts are still, by and large, sovereign.

2d 190, 191 (1997) (citing Commonwealth, Office of Administration v. Orage, 511 Pa. 2d 852, 853 (1986)). Nearly a half century ago, in Scott v. Philadelphia Parking Authority, 402 Pa. 2d 278 (1961), this Court outlined the parameters of tenure in public employment, as follows: Without more, an appointed public employee takes his job subject to the possibility of summary removal by the employing authority. He is essentially an employee-at-will. As we said in Mitchell v. 2d 873, 880 (1957)], with reference to a state agency employee but applicable in general, “… good administration requires that the personnel in charge of implementing the policies of an agency be responsible to, and responsive to those charged with the policy-making function, who in turn are responsible to a higher governmental authority, or to the public itself, Ch ap t er 2 » E m p l oy m e nt C on t ra c ts a n d Wr on g f u l D is c h a rg e whichever selected them.