Case Title: State ex rel. Galligan v. Indus. Comm.

Citation: 2010-Ohio-3

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2010-01-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. Galligan v. Indus. Comm., Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-3.] 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2010-OHIO-3 
THE STATE EX REL. GALLIGAN, APPELLEE, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF 
OHIO; TENABLE PROTECTIVE SERVICES, INC., APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Galligan v. Indus. Comm.,  
Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-3.] 
Workers’ compensation — Temporary total disability — Claimant terminated for 
violating work rules — Voluntary abandonment of employment — 
Employer’s failure to include employee handbook in record — Absence of 
handbook not fatal to voluntary-abandonment defense when other 
evidence in record establishes that infraction for which claimant was 
terminated was a known company policy. 
(No. 2009-0141 — Submitted November 3, 2009 — Decided January 6, 2010.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 08AP-36, 
2008-Ohio-6426. 
__________________ 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} At issue is appellee Betty J. Galligan’s eligibility for temporary 
total disability compensation after she was fired by appellant Tenable Protective 
Services, Inc.  Galligan was hired as a security officer in February 2006 and was 
fired a year later after accumulating approximately two dozen citations — oral 
and written — for violating work rules.  These violations included inappropriate 
sexual remarks, breach of confidentiality protocol, time-sheet irregularities, 
failure to remain at her post, and multiple incidents of tardiness/absenteeism, 
insubordination, and sleeping at her post.  At least seven violations occurred 
before her August 2006 industrial injury, and the rest occurred after. 
{¶ 2} On at least four occasions, Tenable warned Galligan that further 
violations would lead to disciplinary action.  On November 9, 2006, she was cited 
for insubordination and warned by memo that “[a]ny future violations of any 
company policy will result in immediate termination of employment.” (Emphasis 
added.)  Less than three weeks later, a supervisor found Galligan asleep at her 
post and warned her that disciplinary action would follow another occurrence.  A 
second violation for sleeping on the job six days later generated the same 
response.  A third violation on February 23, 2007, finally resulted in Galligan’s 
dismissal. 
{¶ 3} About a month after she was fired, Galligan filed a motion for 
temporary total disability compensation with the Industrial Commission of Ohio.  
The commission denied compensation after finding that Galligan’s discharge 
constituted a voluntary abandonment of employment under State ex rel. 
Louisiana-Pacific Corp. v. Indus. Comm.  (1995), 72 Ohio St.3d 401, 650 N.E.2d 
469. 
{¶ 4} Galligan filed a complaint in mandamus in the Court of Appeals 
for Franklin County.  Litigation centered on Louisiana-Pacific, in which we held 
that to constitute a voluntary abandonment, a firing must arise from an 
January Term, 2010 
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employee’s “violation of a written work rule or policy that (1) clearly defined the 
prohibited conduct, (2) had been previously identified by the employer as a 
dischargeable offense, and (3) was known or should have been known to the 
employee.”  Id. at 403, 650 N.E.2d 459.  The court of appeals magistrate 
concluded that meaningful review was foreclosed by Tenable’s failure to submit 
its employee handbook into the record: 
{¶ 5} “Obviously, if the language of the written work rule is unknown to 
the commission and to this court, it is impossible for the commission or this court 
to determine whether the rule clearly defines the prohibited conduct that resulted 
in the termination.” 
{¶ 6} The magistrate rejected Tenable’s assertion that the absence of the 
handbook was harmless because Galligan’s disciplinary write-ups, i.e., 
“Employee Consultations,” that were in the record sufficiently set forth the 
policies that were violated: 
{¶ 7} “The concern is that the “Employee Consultations” do not produce 
the very language of the written rules that allegedly underlie the warnings.  
Moreover, in the absence of the employee handbook, the context of the specific 
written rule at issue cannot be known even if the language of the written rule itself 
be known. 
{¶ 8} “In short, Tenable’s failure to submit the employee handbook 
prevents judicial review of the discharge on the question of whether the written 
work rules clearly define the prohibited conduct.  On that basis, this magistrate 
must conclude that Tenable’s failure to submit the employee handbook was fatal 
to its voluntary abandonment claim.” 
{¶ 9} The court of appeals adopted the magistrate’s report, also 
suggesting that, with or without the handbook, the violations were too 
insignificant to merit foreclosure of temporary total disability compensation.  
Indeed, the opinion described the issue as “whether these various infractions were 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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so serious as to constitute a voluntary abandonment of employment.”  The court 
answered that question in the negative and granted the writ. 
{¶ 10} Tenable now appeals to this court as of right. 
{¶ 11} Voluntary departure from employment can bar temporary total 
disability compensation.  State ex rel. Rockwell Internatl. v. Indus. Comm. (1988), 
40 Ohio St.3d 44, 45-46, 531 N.E.2d 678.  Employment discharge can be 
considered a voluntary abandonment if it originates from behavior that the 
claimant willingly undertook.  State ex rel. Watts v. Schottenstein Stores Corp. v. 
Indus. Comm. (1993), 68 Ohio St.3d 118, 121, 623 N.E.2d 1202.  This rule arises 
from “the principle that an individual ‘may be presumed to tacitly accept the 
consequences of his voluntary acts.’ ”  State ex rel. Valley Interior Sys., Inc. v. 
Indus. Comm., 118 Ohio St.3d 418, 2008-Ohio-2703, 889 N.E.2d 993, ¶ 9, 
quoting State ex rel. Ashcraft v. Indus. Comm. (1987), 34 Ohio St.3d 42, 44, 517 
N.E.2d 533.  But “the consequence must be one of which the employee was, or 
should have been, aware.”  Valley Interior, id. 
{¶ 12} Louisiana-Pacific incorporates these tenets.  To be considered a 
voluntary abandonment under Louisiana-Pacific, a firing must arise from an 
employee’s “violation of a written work rule or policy that (1) clearly defined the 
prohibited conduct, (2) had been previously identified by the employer as a 
dischargeable offense, and (3) was known or should have been known to the 
employee.”  72 Ohio St.3d at 403, 650 N.E.2d 469. 
{¶ 13} Louisiana-Pacific first demands that the rule must be in writing.  
We elaborated on this requirement in State ex rel. McKnabb v. Indus. Comm.  
(2001), 92 Ohio St.3d 559, 561, 752 N.E.2d 254: 
{¶ 14} “Written rules do more than just define prohibited conduct.  They 
set forth a standard of enforcement as well.  Verbal rules can be selectively 
enforced.  Written policies help prevent arbitrary sanctions and are particularly 
January Term, 2010 
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important when dealing with employment terminations that may block eligibility 
for certain benefits.” 
{¶ 15} Employers typically incorporate their work rules into a written 
manual or handbook that is distributed to all employees.  No one disputes that 
Tenable had a handbook.  To the contrary, Galligan acknowledged that she was 
given one when hired.  The handbook, however, is not in the record, and its 
absence gives rise to the issue now before us:  does an employer’s failure to enter 
its employee handbook into the record automatically defeat a claim of voluntary 
abandonment? 
{¶ 16} The key term here is automatically.  Because the commission has 
exclusive authority to weigh and evaluate the evidence, a per se rule is 
inappropriate.  In State ex rel. Burley v. Coil Packing, Inc. (1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 
18, 31 OBR 70, 508 N.E.2d 936, the seminal case on the commission’s 
evidentiary authority, we were asked to review an evidentiary precept known as 
the “Anderson doctrine,” first announced in State ex rel. Anderson v. Indus. 
Comm. (1980), 62 Ohio St.2d 166, 16 O.O.3d 199, 404 N.E.2d 153.  Anderson 
held that that when considering the extent of disability in claims having both 
physical and psychological conditions, the commission was precluded from 
relying on medical reports that did not evaluate the combined effects of all 
allowed conditions. 
{¶ 17} While well-intentioned, Anderson had the unfortunate effect of 
automatically disqualifying innumerable relevant medical reports from 
commission consideration.  In overturning that decision in Burley, we wrote: 
{¶ 18} “To begin with, the Anderson decision effectively prevents the 
commission from ever considering the weight and credibility of any evidence 
which does not comport with the requisites of Anderson.  This rule applies 
without regard to the relevancy * * * which a particular medical report may have 
toward one of the claimant’s impairments.  Not only does this rule deny the 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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commission the benefit of considering what could be some of the most persuasive 
and credible evidence before it as to one aspect of the claimant’s impairments, but 
it also dissuades the parties from tendering all the relevant evidence in the 
matter.”  Id., 31 Ohio St.3d at 20, 31 OBR 70, 508 N.E.2d 936. 
{¶ 19} A per se rule foreclosing voluntary abandonment as a defense 
when the employee handbook is not in the record would have the same effect.  It 
would deprive the commission of the ability to consider any of the other evidence 
presented in situations where the handbook is absent, regardless of the relevancy 
of the other evidence that may be in the record. 
{¶ 20} In this case, in lieu of the employee handbook, Tenable submitted 
Galligan’s disciplinary file into evidence.  This evidence establishes that Galligan 
was on written notice from a prior “Employee Consultation” sheet that sleeping at 
her security post — the offense for which she was eventually fired — was a 
violation of company policy.  This satisfies Louisiana-Pacific’s requirements that 
the prohibited conduct be both clearly defined and known to Galligan. 
{¶ 21} Louisiana-Pacific’s remaining requirement is that the offense was 
one that the employer had previously identified as dischargeable.  72 Ohio St.3d 
at 403, 650 N.E.2d 469.  It is not known whether sleeping on duty, in isolation, 
was a dischargeable offense because the employee handbook is not in the record.  
Under these facts, however, that absence is not dispositive.  Galligan’s 
disciplinary write-up on November 9, 2006 specifically stated that any further 
violation of any work rule would result in dismissal.  Galligan then was 
effectively on notice that if she was caught sleeping at her post again, she would 
be fired. 
{¶ 22} The commission did not abuse its discretion in finding that 
Galligan’s discharge constituted a voluntary abandonment of her job.  The 
judgment of the court of appeals is hereby reversed. 
Judgment reversed. 
January Term, 2010 
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MOYER, 
C.J., 
and 
PFEIFER, 
LUNDBERG 
STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR, 
O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, and CUPP, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
Gregg A. Austin, for appellee. 
Calfee, Halter & Griswold, L.L.P., William L.S. Ross, and William B. 
McKinley, for appellant. 
_______________________