Harry BELLAS, v. CBS, INC.; Westinghouse Pension Plan, Appellants

Westinghouse Electric Corporation (“Westinghouse”) fired its long-term employee Harry Bellas (“Bellas”) on December 31, 1997. That was of course within Westinghouse’s rights: Under the common law principles of at-will employment, an employer is free to terminate a 32-year employee — just as it is free to terminate a probationary employee with just a few months under his or her belt — for good reason, bad reason or no reason at all. But here it is more than worth noting that there was no Westinghouse “plant shutdown” or any other kind of “shutdown” involved at all — and that is the bizarre…