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Jarrard v. United Parcel Serv. Inc.

Employer did not engage in outrageous and egregious conduct by giving an employee an extremely harsh job evaluation on the day he returned from his six-week medical leave for psychiatric care.

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Based on psychic injury caused by a harsh and ill-timed job evaluation, Michael Jarrard sued his employer United Parcel Service for intentional infliction of emotional distress and was joined by his wife who asserted a derivative claim for loss of consortium.1 UPS successfully moved for summary judgment on both claims on the ground that its conduct was not extreme and outrageous, which ruling the Jarrards appeal. The issue for this court is a question of law:2 whether giving a harsh performance evaluation on the day an employee returns from extended psychiatric care and continuing that interview despite the employee’s tearful entreaties for a postponement rise to the requisite level of outrageousness and egregiousness to sustain a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. We are constrained to hold that such conduct does not and affirm.

Construed in favor of the plaintiff, the evidence showed that on his first day back from six weeks of medical leave,3 Jarrard received a stinging evaluation of his job performance at UPS for the three months preceding the leave. Specifically, in a twenty-page evaluation form covering numerous topics, Jarrard received grades of two or three on a scale of zero to six, whereas his prior evaluations were primarily ranks of five or six.4 Jarrard disagreed with the rankings given him. The harsh evaluation was apparently in retaliation for past conflicts between Jarrard and management and would normally have taken place during the time Jarrard was out on leave.

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