I was in Denver today arguing a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. One of the cases in front of mine on the docket was the Weyerhauser case, where a bunch of people who worked for Weyerhauser got fired because they had guns in their trucks on a parking lot owned by Weyerhauser.
The lawyer representing what I take to be "our" side on this forum (the fired employees), a pretty good fellow named Larry Johnson, didn't do a bad job, but I think the judges may not be leaning our way here.
Larry was arguing that an exception to Oklahoma's "at-will" employment doctrine made it illegal to fire the people. The relevant exception was the "public policy" exception, meaning that you can't fire someone if doing so would violate the public policy of the Great and Sovereign State of Oklahoma.
And the public policy at issue here is the one expressed in a bunch of statutes dealing with Oklahoma's CCW law. The sections dealing with where you can't carry your CCW invariably make exceptions for parking lots of the restricted buildings.
Like those arguments in front of appellate judges always do, the arguments veered all over a bunch of rabbit trails...at one point Larry even quoted Cicero, whose name was etched in some woodwork high above the floor of that particular courtroom.
I didn't hear Larry say that at the beginning of Oklahoma's CCW law there was an expressed policy statement regarding the right of Oklahomans to carry concealed weapons...it might have helped him a little, but with all the other issues floating around (4th Amendment violation- - local sheriff gave Weyerhauser the names of the people whose cars were in the lot, as he ran them down at Weyerhauser's request--another--whether or not some independent contractors were really "employees" with standing to sue Weyerhauser, etc.-- another--whether it really was Weyerhauser's parking lot, because a LOT of other people parked there--another--whether the case should be given over to the Oklahoma Supreme Court to make a call... & etc.), I can't blame him for not mentioning it....I know I forgot MY share of stuff to tell the judges, too- -you always think of the greatest lines afterward.
Of additional note here is that Oklahoma changed the law in 2004 to make it very, very clear that the Great State of Oklahoma fully intended for the parking lot exceptions to apply to parking lots owned by employers under the facts of this case. Larry was instrumental in getting that change through the Oklahoma legislature. The enforcement of that statute, as many know on this forum, is currently stayed in another lawsuit, that one involving Conoco-Phillips. It is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma in front of Judge Terence Kern--I am monitoring that case pretty closely, too. Larry is the lawyer in that one as well.
While I don't know Larry at all, I have a passing acquaintance with the lawyers on Weyerhauser's side. My wife has worked with one, and I have worked with another. They're not bad ogre Hillary/Feinstein/Ted Kennedy dudes at all....just doing what they're paid to do. Don't have opinions about guns, really, one way or another...just another case to them, and that's in sharp contrast to Larry, who one of the Weyerhauser lawyers referred to today (not at all disrespectfully, either) as a "true believer".
That's all the fit that's news to print!
If anyone has any questions here, sound off...I'll be up awhile tonight.
N
The lawyer representing what I take to be "our" side on this forum (the fired employees), a pretty good fellow named Larry Johnson, didn't do a bad job, but I think the judges may not be leaning our way here.
Larry was arguing that an exception to Oklahoma's "at-will" employment doctrine made it illegal to fire the people. The relevant exception was the "public policy" exception, meaning that you can't fire someone if doing so would violate the public policy of the Great and Sovereign State of Oklahoma.
And the public policy at issue here is the one expressed in a bunch of statutes dealing with Oklahoma's CCW law. The sections dealing with where you can't carry your CCW invariably make exceptions for parking lots of the restricted buildings.
Like those arguments in front of appellate judges always do, the arguments veered all over a bunch of rabbit trails...at one point Larry even quoted Cicero, whose name was etched in some woodwork high above the floor of that particular courtroom.
I didn't hear Larry say that at the beginning of Oklahoma's CCW law there was an expressed policy statement regarding the right of Oklahomans to carry concealed weapons...it might have helped him a little, but with all the other issues floating around (4th Amendment violation- - local sheriff gave Weyerhauser the names of the people whose cars were in the lot, as he ran them down at Weyerhauser's request--another--whether or not some independent contractors were really "employees" with standing to sue Weyerhauser, etc.-- another--whether it really was Weyerhauser's parking lot, because a LOT of other people parked there--another--whether the case should be given over to the Oklahoma Supreme Court to make a call... & etc.), I can't blame him for not mentioning it....I know I forgot MY share of stuff to tell the judges, too- -you always think of the greatest lines afterward.
Of additional note here is that Oklahoma changed the law in 2004 to make it very, very clear that the Great State of Oklahoma fully intended for the parking lot exceptions to apply to parking lots owned by employers under the facts of this case. Larry was instrumental in getting that change through the Oklahoma legislature. The enforcement of that statute, as many know on this forum, is currently stayed in another lawsuit, that one involving Conoco-Phillips. It is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma in front of Judge Terence Kern--I am monitoring that case pretty closely, too. Larry is the lawyer in that one as well.
While I don't know Larry at all, I have a passing acquaintance with the lawyers on Weyerhauser's side. My wife has worked with one, and I have worked with another. They're not bad ogre Hillary/Feinstein/Ted Kennedy dudes at all....just doing what they're paid to do. Don't have opinions about guns, really, one way or another...just another case to them, and that's in sharp contrast to Larry, who one of the Weyerhauser lawyers referred to today (not at all disrespectfully, either) as a "true believer".
That's all the fit that's news to print!
If anyone has any questions here, sound off...I'll be up awhile tonight.
N
