Supreme Court Deals with Question of Voluntary Job Abandonment

Tuesday, November 4, 2014 | 0

On Sept. 6, 2006, Wanda Jacobs injured her back while working at her job for Cenveo, Inc. – a manufacturer of envelopes, labels and related items. She was treated at the emergency room the next day and released. Her treating physician – Dr. Marinela L. Turc – said that Wanda could return to light-duty work on Oct. 2.

On Sept. 29, Wanda filed a report of her injury with the Industrial Commission of Ohio, which handles workers’ compensation issues.

Cenveo is a self-insured employer, meaning that rather than paying into Ohio's Workers’ Compensation system, it insures itself against claims by injured employees.

When Wanda started back to work, Cenveo accommodated the light-duty work restriction by assigning her to an area where she could sit and stand as often as necessary. Wanda reported to work on Oct. 2, but after an hour, she complained of pain and said that she couldn’t continue.

She left for the day, telling her employer that she intended to follow up with Dr. Turc. But she didn’t go to see Dr. Turc, and she never returned to work.

Cenveo sent Wanda a letter on Oct. 17, stating that according to Dr. Turc, “you were able to return to work on restricted duty on Oct. 2, 2006. You have failed to return to work or provide any updated information on your current condition.”

Because she was absent without notification, Cenveo informed her that she’d be terminated if she didn’t contact the company by Oct. 23. When Wanda failed to contact Cenveo, she was terminated on the 23rd for abandoning her job.

The Industrial Commission had allowed Wanda’s initial claim, which entitled her to receive compensation directly from Cenveo for loss sustained because of her back injury. On March 19, 2007, Wanda filed a motion or temporary total disability compensation (“TTD”) to begin retroactively on Dec. 30, 2006. Her claim was supported by a report from a new physician.

The purpose of TTD is to compensate injured employees for the loss of earnings while the industrial injury heals. In order to qualify for TTD, claimants must show not only that they lack the medical capability of returning to their former position but that a cause-and-effect relationship exists between the injury and an actual loss of earnings.

The Commission denied the request on the basis that Wanda had been terminated from her employment for violating Cenveo’s absenteeism policy and failing to accept the light-duty work offered. The Commission concluded that Wanda had abandoned her employment and that the abandonment barred payment of TTD.

Three and a half years later, Wanda filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals alleging that she was unable to return to her former position due to her injury, that she had not voluntarily abandoned her employment and that the Commission had abused its discretion when it denied her request for benefits. The Court of Appeals denied her complaint because her conduct had amounted to a voluntary abandonment of employment.

After that, Wanda’s case came before us – the Ohio Supreme Court. She maintained that her physician hadn’t released her to return to her former position at the time of her discharge. Thus, she claimed that because she was medically unable to return to her former position, she remained eligible for TTD.

She conceded that she returned to work by Oct. 2, 2006, but that after an hour, she was physically unable to continue. Wanda maintained that by reporting her inability to continue, she rejected the offer of a light-duty job. She argued that because no physician had released her to return to her former position, Cenveo terminated her while she was disabled and cannot now argue that she voluntarily abandoned her employment.

The Court of Appeals rejected that argument, relying on a 2008 court decision involving a worker named Adkins who had accepted light-duty work but didn’t report when scheduled. Adkins was fired for violating her employer’s attendance policy, and the Commission denied her subsequent request for TTD on the grounds that her failure to report to work constituted voluntary abandonment of her job.

The Adkins court held that once the worker accepted the light-duty position, she was required to adhere to her employer’s absenteeism policy and that violating the policy was a voluntary abandonment of employment.

In Wanda’s case, the Court of Appeals concluded that her conduct, like Adkins, amounted to a voluntary abandonment of employment. The court stated that Wanda started at the light-duty position that Cenveo offered her and that she never provided Cenveo with the medical evidence that the position was beyond her capability, even though she left after only an hour.

The court reasoned that Wanda couldn’t later argue that she rejected a job offer after she had reported for and begun performing the work, failed to return to that job and failed to provide any explanation for not returning.

Wanda argued that Adkins’ case was factually distinguishable because Adkins accepted the light-duty position but didn’t report to work, while Wanda left work because of pain from her injury.

We disagreed. Wanda never disputed that she began working in the position that Cenveo made available to accommodate her physical restrictions. Wanda left after an hour, saying that she was going to consult with her physician, but she never did.

Instead, she simply didn’t return to work. When Cenveo notified her that she was considered absent without notification, she didn’t respond to the warning that she would be terminated if she didn’t return.

When a claimant is discharged because of actions that were initiated by the claimant and that were not related to the injury, a voluntary separation from employment has occurred that breaks the casual relationship between the injury and the loss of earnings.

Under those circumstances, the claimant is considered to have voluntarily departed from the workplace and is not entitled to TTD. We thus affirmed the Court of Appeals’ judgment – by a five-to-one vote – that the Commission did not abuse its discretion when it denied Wanda’s request for compensation.

Paul Pfeifer is an Ohio Supreme Court Justice. This column was reprinted from his weekly newspaper column.