## Facts

- Patricia Williams Howard sought employment at Wolff Broadcasting Corporation, a small Alabama radio station with roughly seven employees.
- Wolff hired Howard in late 1987 as a disc jockey and advertising salesperson, despite her lack of radio experience.
- Howard saw a lobby sign stating the station would not discriminate against “females, blacks, or any others.”
- Howard had no written employment contract and no agreement for employment for a definite term.
- On January 26, 1988, station manager Keith Holcombe terminated Howard while she was on the air.
- Howard alleged she was fired because Karen Wolff did not want females on the air; Howard prepared a letter asserting that reason and claimed Holcombe signed it.
- Because of Wolff’s small size, federal statutory antidiscrimination remedies such as Title VII did not apply.
- Howard sued Wolff for breach of contract and fraud (including promissory fraud), arguing that FCC equal employment opportunity regulations and the lobby sign created enforceable nondiscrimination obligations.

## Issues

1. Whether FCC equal employment opportunity regulations and a general nondiscrimination sign created an implied contract or otherwise modified Howard’s at-will employment to restrict discharge for discriminatory reasons.
2. Whether Howard presented substantial evidence of fraud or promissory fraud, including evidence that Wolff made a nondiscrimination promise with present intent not to perform.
3. Whether Alabama should recognize a common-law public-policy wrongful discharge claim for termination solely on the basis of sex.

## Decision

- The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Wolff.
- The court held Howard was an at-will employee and that neither FCC regulations nor the lobby sign created a contractual limitation on Wolff’s right to terminate.
- The court held Howard failed to produce substantial evidence of fraud or promissory fraud because she did not show a present intent to deceive when any nondiscrimination assurance was allegedly made.
- The court declined to create a public-policy exception to Alabama’s at-will doctrine for gender-based terminations, leaving any such change to the legislature.

## Legal Principles

- In Alabama, absent a contract for a definite term or a clear and specific limitation on termination, employment is presumptively at will and may be ended by either party with or without cause.
- General policy statements of nondiscrimination do not, without clear contractual language, constitute an offer or promise sufficient to alter at-will employment.
- Regulatory compliance obligations (including FCC equal employment opportunity rules) do not, without more, create privately enforceable contractual rights that modify at-will employment.
- Promissory fraud requires substantial evidence that, at the time the promise was made, the promisor intended not to perform; nonperformance alone is not evidence of that intent.
- Alabama courts will not create broad public-policy tort exceptions to the at-will doctrine where the legislature has not provided a statutory remedy.

## Conclusion

The court held that Howard’s employment remained at will despite asserted nondiscrimination assurances, that her fraud theory failed for lack of evidence of intent to deceive at the time of hiring, and that Alabama would not recognize a judicial wrongful discharge claim for sex-based termination absent legislative action.


Howard v. Wolff Broad. Corp., 611 So. 2d 307 (Ala. 1992)