## Facts

- Janice Arres worked for IMI Cornelius Remcor, Inc. as a human resources administrator from 1996 until her termination in 1999.
- The Social Security Administration informed Remcor that about 10% of employee W-2 forms reflected name/number mismatches with federal records.
- Arres concluded the mismatches meant some employees used false Social Security numbers and were unauthorized to work, and she urged management to fire those employees immediately.
- Remcor, acting through a supervisor, consulted the SSA and company counsel and chose to send employees letters requesting correction of discrepancies rather than immediate termination.
- Arres believed Remcor’s approach was unlawful, refused to process employees’ submitted corrections, and was terminated.
- Arres sued alleging Title VII discrimination and Illinois common-law retaliatory discharge; on appeal, she dropped the Title VII claims and pursued only retaliatory discharge.

## Issues

1. Whether Illinois common law recognizes retaliatory discharge when an employee is fired for insisting the employer must immediately terminate workers the employee believes are unauthorized, contrary to an employer’s counsel- and agency-informed compliance approach.
2. Whether the asserted public policy favoring immigration-law enforcement qualifies as a “clearly mandated” Illinois public policy supporting the retaliatory-discharge tort in this context.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Remcor.
- Arres failed to satisfy the Illinois retaliatory-discharge requirement that the termination violate a clearly mandated Illinois public policy.
- The court treated Arres’s refusal to implement the employer’s selected, legally vetted response as insubordination, not protected activity under Illinois retaliatory-discharge doctrine.
- The court declined to hold that federal immigration anti-retaliation provisions categorically bar state retaliatory-discharge claims, but held that any state policy theory cannot conflict with the federal immigration framework or add different employer obligations.

## Legal Principles

- Illinois retaliatory discharge requires proof that: (1) the employee was discharged, (2) the discharge was retaliatory, and (3) the discharge violated a clearly mandated Illinois public policy.
- A “clearly mandated” public policy must be specific and cannot be defined so broadly that it effectively imposes additional duties in an area governed by comprehensive federal regulation.
- An employee’s disagreement with an employer’s legally supported compliance choice, without refusal to participate in clearly illegal conduct or reporting a clear legal violation, does not establish protected activity for Illinois retaliatory discharge.
- In immigration-related employment verification matters, employers retain discretion to select lawful responses to documentation discrepancies within the federal scheme; an employee cannot use state tort law to compel a more aggressive approach.

## Conclusion

The court held that Illinois’s retaliatory-discharge tort did not protect an employee terminated for refusing to carry out an employer’s agency- and counsel-informed method of addressing Social Security discrepancies, because the employee identified no clearly mandated Illinois public policy requiring immediate termination of the affected workers.


Arres v. IMI Cornelius Remcor, Inc., 333 F.3d 812 (7th Cir. 2003)