Case Title: State ex rel. Jacobs v. Indus. Comm’n

Citation: 2014-Ohio-1560

Docket Number: 2012-1554

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2014-04-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. Jacobs v. Indus. Comm., Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-1560.] 
 
 
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. 2014-OHIO-1560 
THE STATE EX REL. JACOBS, APPELLANT, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION 
 OF OHIO ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets,  
it may be cited as State ex rel. Jacobs v. Indus. Comm.,  
Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-1560.] 
Workers’ compensation—Temporary-total-disability compensation—Voluntary 
abandonment of the work force—Court of appeals’ judgment denying a 
writ of mandamus affirmed. 
(No. 2012-1554—Submitted December 11, 2013—Decided April 15, 2014.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 11AP-262,  
2012-Ohio-3763. 
____________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Wanda Jacobs, appeals the judgment of the court of 
appeals denying her request for a writ of mandamus to require appellee Industrial 
Commission to vacate its order denying her temporary-total-disability 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
 
compensation and to award compensation for the period beginning December 30, 
2006. 
{¶ 2} The court of appeals determined that the commission’s order was 
supported by evidence that appellee Cenveo, Inc., had terminated Jacobs for 
unexplained absences after she had been reassigned to light-duty work: after 
working for one hour, she left and did not return.  Thus, the court concluded that 
the commission did not abuse its discretion when it denied Jacobs’s request for 
temporary-total-disability compensation on the basis that her discharge 
constituted a voluntary abandonment of her employment. 
{¶ 3} We agree and we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
{¶ 4} On September 6, 2006, Jacobs injured her lower back while 
working for Cenveo, a self-insured employer.  She was treated at the emergency 
room on September 7, 2006, and released.  Jacobs’s treating physician, Dr. 
Marinela L. Turc, said that she could return to light duty work on October 2, 
2006.  On September 29, 2006, she filed a report of her injury with the Industrial 
Commission. 
{¶ 5} Cenveo accommodated the light-duty work restriction by assigning 
Jacobs to an area where she could sit and stand as often as necessary.  Jacobs 
reported to work on October 2, but after about an hour, she complained of pain 
and said that she could not continue.  She left for the day, telling her employer 
that she intended to follow up with Dr. Turc.  Cenveo later confirmed that Jacobs 
did not see Dr. Turc as she had said she would, and Jacobs never returned to 
work. 
{¶ 6} Cenveo’s human-resources manager sent Jacobs a letter on 
October 17, 2006, that stated:   
 
 
I recently sent you a certified letter on October 5, 2006, 
asking you to contact me to discuss your time away from work.  
January Term, 2014 
3 
 
According to Dr. Turc, you were able to return to work on 
restricted duty on October 2, 2006.  You have failed to return to 
work or provide any updated information on your current 
condition. 
 
You are currently AWOL (absent without notification). 
 
If I do not hear from you by Monday, October 23, 2006, 
your employment with Cenveo will be terminated. 
 
{¶ 7} On October 23, 2006, Cenveo discharged Jacobs for abandoning 
her job. 
{¶ 8} The Industrial Commission allowed Jacobs’s claim for “strain low 
back” which entitled her to receive compensation directly from Cenveo, the self-
insuring employer, for loss sustained because of the specific injury allowed, 
including medical expenses.  R.C. 4123.54(A).  However, the commission noted 
that Jacobs initially had not requested compensation for lost time, and thus it 
found insufficient evidence to award temporary-total-disability compensation.  On 
March 19, 2007, Jacobs filed a motion for temporary-total-disability 
compensation to begin December 30, 2006, supported by a report from a new 
physician, Dr. Rafik Massoun.  The commission denied the request on the basis 
that Jacobs had been terminated from her employment on October 23, 2006, for 
violating the company’s absenteeism policy and failing to accept the light-duty 
work offered.  The commission concluded that Jacobs had abandoned her 
employment and that the abandonment barred payment of temporary-total-
disability compensation. 
{¶ 9} Three-and-a-half years after the denial of benefits, on March 17, 
2011, Jacobs filed a complaint for a writ of mandamus.  She alleged that she was 
unable to return to her former position of employment due to her workplace 
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injury, that she had not voluntarily abandoned her employment, and that the 
commission had abused its discretion when it denied her request for benefits. 
{¶ 10} The court of appeals concluded that the commission did not abuse 
its discretion when it denied Jacobs’s request for temporary-total-disability 
compensation, finding that her conduct had amounted to a voluntary abandonment 
of employment.  The appellate court denied the writ. 
{¶ 11} Jacobs has filed an appeal as of right. 
{¶ 12} The purpose of temporary-total-disability compensation is to 
compensate an injured employee for the loss of earnings while the industrial 
injury heals.  State ex rel. Pierron v. Indus. Comm., 120 Ohio St.3d 40, 2008-
Ohio-5245, 896 N.E.2d 140, ¶ 9. 
 
[I]n order to qualify for [temporary-total-disability] compensation, 
the claimant must show not only that he or she lacks the medical 
capability of returning to the former position of employment but 
that a cause-and-effect relationship exists between the industrial 
injury and an actual loss of earnings.  In other words, it must 
appear that, but for the industrial injury, the claimant would be 
gainfully employed. 
 
 State ex rel. McCoy v. Dedicated Transport, Inc., 97 Ohio St.3d 25, 2002-Ohio-
5305, 776 N.E.2d 51, ¶ 35. 
{¶ 13} Jacobs contends that her physician had not released her to return to 
her former position of employment at the time of her discharge on October 23, 
2006.  Thus, she maintains that because she was medically unable to return to her 
former 
position, 
she 
remained 
eligible 
for 
temporary-total-disability 
compensation.  Jacobs concedes that she returned to work on October 2, 2006, but 
claims that after an hour, she was physically unable to continue.  Jacobs maintains 
January Term, 2014 
5 
 
that by reporting her inability to continue, she rejected the offer of a light-duty 
job.  She claims that because no physician had released her to return to her former 
position of employment, Cenveo terminated her while she was disabled and 
cannot now argue that she voluntarily abandoned her employment. 
{¶ 14} The court of appeals rejected this argument, relying on State ex rel. 
Adkins v. Indus. Comm., 10th Dist. Franklin No. 07AP-975, 2008-Ohio-4260, a 
case in which the injured worker had accepted light-duty work but did not report 
when scheduled.  Adkins was fired for violating her employer’s attendance 
policy, and the commission denied her subsequent request for temporary-total-
disability compensation on the grounds that her failure to report to work 
constituted voluntary abandonment of her job.  The court of appeals held that 
once Adkins 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. 
{¶ 15} In this case, the court of appeals concluded that Jacobs’s conduct, 
like that of Adkins, amounted to a voluntary abandonment of employment.  The 
court of appeals stated that Jacobs started at the light-duty position that Cenveo 
had offered her and that she never provided Cenveo with medical evidence that 
the position was beyond her capability, even though she had left after only an 
hour.  The court of appeals reasoned that Jacobs cannot now argue that she 
rejected a job offer after she had reported for and begun to perform the work, 
failed to return to that job, and failed to provide any explanation for not returning. 
{¶ 16} Jacobs argues that Adkins is factually distinguishable because in 
that case, the injured worker accepted the light-duty position but did not report to 
work on the scheduled date, while Jacobs left work because of pain from her 
workplace injury. 
{¶ 17} We do not agree.  Jacobs does not dispute that she began working 
in the position that Cenveo made available to accommodate her physical 
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restrictions.  Jacobs left after an hour but represented to Cenveo that she was 
going to consult with her physician.  There is no evidence that she did.  Instead, 
Jacobs simply did not return to work.  When Cenveo notified her that she was 
considered absent without notification, she did not respond to the warning that she 
would be terminated if she did not return. 
{¶ 18} When a claimant is discharged because of actions that were 
initiated by the claimant and that were not related to the industrial injury, a 
voluntary separation from employment has occurred that breaks the causal 
relationship between the industrial injury and the loss of earnings.  State ex rel. 
Brown v. Hoover Universal, Inc., 132 Ohio St.3d 520, 2012-Ohio-3895, 974 
N.E.2d 1198, ¶ 11.  Under those circumstances, the claimant is considered to have 
voluntarily departed from the workplace and is not entitled to temporary-total-
disability compensation.  State ex rel. Daniels v. Indus. Comm., 99 Ohio St.3d 
282, 2003-Ohio-3626, 791 N.E.2d 440, ¶ 7. 
{¶ 19} The commission’s order that Jacobs voluntarily abandoned her 
employment 
and 
was 
barred 
from 
receiving 
temporary-total-disability 
compensation was supported by the evidence.  Thus, the commission did not 
abuse its discretion when it denied Jacobs’s request for compensation. 
{¶ 20} We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, and KENNEDY, 
JJ., concur. 
O’NEILL, J., dissents. 
FRENCH, J., not participating. 
____________________ 
O’NEILL, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 21} I question the application of the judicially created theory of 
voluntary abandonment of employment in any workers’ compensation case, but it 
January Term, 2014 
7 
 
is particularly troubling in cases where the Industrial Commission has not even 
considered all the medical evidence presented by the claimant.  In this case, there 
is unequivocal medical evidence that this employee was injured on the job. And 
the Industrial Commission has yet to address the merits of Wanda Jacobs’s 
request for compensation based on the report from Dr. Rafik Massoun.  I believe 
that any discussion of voluntary abandonment of employment is premature at 
best.  This case should be remanded to the Industrial Commission for further 
proceedings. 
{¶ 22} I continue to maintain my position that “voluntary abandonment of 
employment” is a judicial creation that is eroding Ohio’s constitutionally 
guaranteed no-fault workers’ compensation system.  Decisions such as the 
majority’s in this case take the court further down the wrong path.  State ex rel. 
Robinson v. Indus. Comm., ___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2014-Ohio-546, ____ N.E.3d 
____ (O’Neill, J., dissenting). 
{¶ 23} Ohio’s workers’ compensation system is a no-fault system 
established 100 years ago by an amendment to the Ohio Constitution.  See Article 
II, Section 35.  It is codified in great detail in the Ohio Revised Code.  The 
cornerstone of Ohio’s system is that both sides surrender certain rights to gain 
certain protections.  Injured workers relinquish their common-law access to the 
courts and their right to recover damages if they are injured on the job.  In return, 
they gain the right to be compensated for medical bills and loss of earnings from a 
multibillion-dollar fund supplied by employers, who contribute a percentage of 
payroll in a predictable and fair process.  Employers relinquish their common-law 
defenses and, in return, receive an iron-clad assurance that they cannot be sued for 
workplace injuries.  It is a system of mutual compromise.  Blankenship v. 
Cincinnati Milacron Chems., Inc., 69 Ohio St.2d 608, 614, 433 N.E.2d 572 
(1982). 
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{¶ 24} In State ex rel. Ashcraft v. Indus. Comm., 34 Ohio St.3d 42, 517 
N.E.2d 533 (1987), this court held that a claimant receiving temporary-total-
disability compensation forfeits his right to continue receiving compensation 
when he becomes incarcerated, because he has voluntarily abandoned the 
workforce.  This judicially created concept of voluntary abandonment was later 
expanded and applied to circumstances in which an injured worker is terminated 
following the injury.  State ex rel. Louisiana-Pacific Corp. v. Indus. Comm., 72 
Ohio St.3d 401, 650 N.E.2d 469 (1995).  In Louisiana-Pacific, this court held that 
an injured employee who is fired is barred from receiving temporary-total-
disability compensation when the employer can show that the worker was 
terminated for violating a written work rule 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.  I believe that this analysis is entirely irrelevant to a determination of a 
claimant’s eligibility for lost wages as a result of a workplace injury. 
{¶ 25} The case before us is a classic example of the consequences of 
creating an adversarial relationship where none should exist.  The majority 
emphasizes the rationale that in voluntary-abandonment cases, the termination is 
unrelated to the worker’s claimed injury.  Majority opinion at ¶ 18, citing State ex 
rel. Brown v. Hoover Universal, Inc., 132 Ohio St.3d 520, 2012-Ohio-3895, 974 
N.E.2d 1198, ¶ 11, and State ex rel. Daniels v. Indus. Comm., 99 Ohio St.3d 282, 
2003-Ohio-3626, 791 N.E.2d 440, ¶ 7. 
{¶ 26} But that clearly is not the case here.  There was no break in the 
causal relationship between the industrial injury and the employee’s inability to 
perform her job.  Jacobs was injured on the job and tried to return to work on light 
duty.  That did not work, and she has not been back since.  Clearly, the 
termination is directly related to her inability to perform her job due to her injury. 
That issue is simply not subject to dispute based upon the record before us. 
January Term, 2014 
9 
 
{¶ 27} If self-insured employers can avoid the payment of lost wages by 
terminating an employee subsequent to an injury, a cost-saving incentive is 
created: they do not have to pay anything—no lost wages, no payroll taxes.  In 
short, the problem is gone with the employee.  By design, this incentive 
undermines the workers’ compensation system as a whole.  It cannot be stated 
strongly enough that voluntary abandonment is wholly irrelevant to a 
determination of eligibility for temporary-total-disability compensation.  The 
application of this defense in a case where all of the claimant’s medical evidence 
has not been evaluated by the Industrial Commission is plain wrong.  I dissent. 
____________________ 
Nager, Romaine & Schneiberg Co., L.P.A., Jennifer L. Lawther, Jerald A. 
Schneiberg, and Stay M. Callen, for appellant. 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Colleen C. Erdman, Assistant 
Attorney General, for appellee Industrial Commission. 
William W. Johnston, for appellee Cenveo, Inc. 
_________________________