Wrongful termination of an at-will employee; Suchodolski v. Michigan Consol. Gas Co.; Violation of public policy exception; Lewandowski v. Nuclear Mgmt.; Kimmelman v. Heather Downs Mgmt., Ltd.; Phillips v. Butterball Farms Co., Inc.; Garavaglia v. Centra, Inc.; Silberstein v. Pro-Golf of Am., Inc.; Driver v. Hanley; Whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (18 USC § 1514 et seq.) was plaintiff’s exclusive remedy; § 1514A(a)-(c); The federal preemption doctrine; Packowski v. United Food & Commercial Workers Local 951

The court held that the trial court did not err by granting defendant-employer’s motion for summary disposition of plaintiff-at-will-employee’s public-policy claim for wrongful termination. Plaintiff sued defendant alleging violation of public policy and wrongful termination. The trial court found her claims failed because the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was an applicable statute prohibiting retaliatory discharge for her conduct. On appeal, the court rejected her argument that the trial court erred by granting summary disposition for defendant as to her public policy claim, noting “the whistleblower protection remedy of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [wa]s the exclusive remedy for plaintiff’s wrongful termination claim . . . .” It rejected her claim that Lewandowski and Kimmelman did not preclude her public policy claim. Contrary to her “assertions, Kimmelman confirms that plaintiff’s public-policy claim fails because of the whistleblower remedy in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.” In addition, given that she admitted “that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act provides a statutory remedy for her allegedly wrongful discharge, it could, and did, provide her exclusive remedy.” Further, her claim was “precluded not because of any preemptive effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but rather because of Michigan’s approach to public-policy claims as provided in Kimmelman and Lewandowski.” Moreover, she failed to “cite any authority that a difference in the processes required to secure a statutory remedy for wrongful termination and to establish a claim of common-law public policy allow her to pursue a common-law public-policy claim.” She also did not “provide supportive authority for the contention that a statute which employs an administrative process to obtain a remedy for wrongful termination is not subject to the holdings of Kimmelman and Lewandowski.” Finally, the court noted that, “irrespective of the relative likelihood of success of plaintiff’s claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, plaintiff cannot maintain a public-policy claim.” Affirmed.