Can an employer be found guilty of intentional infliction of emotional distress?

The distinction between privileged and nonprivileged conduct as it relates to infliction of emotional distress is implicit in our cases and explicit in the Restatement. In Murphy v. American Home Prods. Corp., 58 N.Y.2d, at 303, 461 N.Y.S.2d 232, 448 N.E.2d 86), an employment case, we held that plaintiff could not "subvert the traditional at-will contract rule by casting his cause of action in terms of a tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress." If an employer has the right to discharge an employee, the exercise of that right cannot lead to a claim for infliction of emotional distress, however distressing the discharge

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