Prior misconduct scuttles her workers’ comp claim
Can workers’ compensation benefits be denied to an injured-on-the-job worker if it was found that she committed workplace misconduct?
Yes, at least in Ohio.
In that state, employees who voluntarily abandon their jobs are ineligible for workers’ compensation benefits.
And the Ohio Supreme Court recently adopted a very liberal definition of voluntary abandonment.
Worker applies for benefits, gets fired
Shelby Robinson was a licensed practical nurse with Progressive Parma Care Center in Ohio.
During her tenure, she was no stranger to discipline, as she’d been written up for violating work rules several times.
After an offense in early 2008, Robinson acknowledged that any future violations would result in her termination.
In the months that followed, Robinson injured her back at work and filed for workers’ compensation.
Less than a week after her injury, a state surveyor reported to Parma Care that, prior to her injury, Robinson failed to:
- communicate a resident’s dietary change, and
- check a resident’s feeding tube.
Immediately following the report, Robinson was terminated for cause.
Following her termination, a hearing officer denied Robinson’s request for temporary-total disability benefits after determining she’d been fired for violating a written work rule.
According to SafetyNewsAlert.com:
Previous cases in Ohio had determined an employee who voluntarily abandons his employment for reasons not related to a workplace injury can’t receive temporary total disability benefits. Being fired is usually considered involuntary separation, but when the firing results from employee misconduct that he knows will result in termination, it may be considered a voluntary abandonment.
State’s highest court upholds benefits denial
Robinson took her case all the way to Ohio’s Supreme Court.
The state High Court’s majority noted two things:
- Robinson knew a violation of one more work rule would result in her firing, and
- Her duties were clearly spelled out in the employee handbook given to her, so she knew failing to record a dietary change and failing to attend to a feeding tube violated work rules.
Bottom line: She knew her actions could result in her termination and she took them anyway, which meant she’d voluntarily abandoned her job, according to the court’s majority.
One judge dissented the ruling, stating that the concept of fault has no place in Ohio’s workers’ comp system.
“What are we saying here?” the judge wrote. “That only good employees will be compensated for an injury on the job? That is not the law in Ohio.”
Cite: Robinson v. Industrial Commission of Ohio
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