Pugh

After 32 years of employment with See’s Candies, Inc., in which he worked his way up the corporate ladder from dishwasher to vice president in charge of production and member of the board of directors, Wayne Pugh was fired. Asserting that he had been fired in breach of contract and for reasons which offend public policy he sued his former employer seeking compensatory and punitive damages for wrongful termination, and joined as a defendant a labor organization which, he alleged, had conspired in or induced the wrongful conduct. The case went to trial before a jury, and upon conclusion of the plaintiffs case-in-chief the trial court granted defendants’ motions for nonsuit, and this appeal followed.

Standard of Review on Nonsuit

Under established principles, a nonsuit may be granted ‘“only where, disregarding conflicting evidence on behalf of the defendants and giving to plaintiffs evidence all the value to which it is legally entitled, therein indulging in every legitimate inference which may be drawn from that evidence, the result is a determination that there is no evidence of sufficient substantiality to support a verdict in favor of the plaintiff.’” (O’Keefe v. South…