## Facts

- Diana Casas worked for Right Away Foods Corp. (RAFCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of Wornick Company, from 1979 until her discharge in 1986 as Director of Human Resources for the M.R.E. division.
- Casas received favorable job-performance reviews before her termination.
- On April 22, 1986, Valerie Hutchins Woerner (Casas’s supervisor) called Casas into Woerner’s office, closed the door, and informed her she was being terminated.
- Woerner stated reasons including alleged disloyalty, a bad attitude (including “snapping at people”), and failure to perform certain tasks.
- Casas believed she was fired to prevent her from obtaining enhanced pension benefits that would have vested when she turned 40.
- After the termination meeting, a security guard escorted Casas from the building; the record indicated escorts were typical for terminated hourly employees, not salaried employees like Casas.
- Casas alleged humiliation and emotional harm from the termination and the manner in which it was carried out.

## Issues

1. Whether the manner of Casas’s discharge constituted “extreme and outrageous” conduct sufficient to support an intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) claim.
2. Whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Casas, defendants were entitled to summary judgment because no reasonable jury could find the conduct actionable as IIED.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the court of appeals and reinstated the trial court’s summary judgment for defendants.
- The court held that, as a matter of law, the employer’s conduct in terminating Casas was not “extreme and outrageous.”
- The court rendered judgment that Casas take nothing on her IIED claim.

## Legal Principles

- IIED requires conduct “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency,” and to be “atrocious” and “utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
- In the employment setting, a discharge—even if humiliating, upsetting, or motivated by self-interest—generally does not satisfy the “extreme and outrageous” requirement absent additional, exceptional misconduct.
- Conduct amounting to “mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities” is not actionable as IIED.
- On summary judgment, courts accept evidence favorable to the nonmovant as true and resolve doubts in the nonmovant’s favor; however, judgment is proper when the conduct alleged cannot meet the legal standard as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court concluded that a private termination meeting with stated performance-related reasons and a security-guard escort from the premises, even if humiliating and inconsistent with typical practice for salaried employees, fell within the range of ordinary termination measures and was not extreme and outrageous; summary judgment for the employer and managers on the IIED claim was proper.


Wornick Co. v. Casas, 856 S.W.2d 732 (Tex. 1993)