An optician manager was not constructively discharged after claiming that public policy prevented him from assisting an optometrist on the job, a state appeals court said, because such a claim “must be supported by more than the employee's subjective opinion that the job conditions have become so intolerable that he or she was forced to resign.”

A Connecticut Appellate Court panel decided that former optician manager Ohan Karagozian's complaint alleging constructive discharge against USV Optical must be stricken. The Jan. 8 decision affirmed Superior Court of New Haven at Meriden Judge John Cronan's 2017 ruling striking the complaint based on a finding that it had insufficiently alleged both elements of constructive discharge in Connecticut.

The unanimous appellate panel wrote that “the plaintiff in the present case merely alleged that he was assigned duties that allegedly violated public policy.” Moreover, Karagozian “did not allege the consequences that may have befallen him by performing the duties to which he was assigned,” the panel wrote.