Case Title: Bickers v. W. & S. Life Ins. Co.

Citation: 2007-Ohio-6751

Docket Number: 20060617

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2007-12-20T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Bickers v. W. & S. Life Ins. Co., 116 Ohio St.3d 351, 2007-Ohio-6751.] 
 
 
BICKERS, APPELLEE, v. WESTERN & SOUTHERN LIFE  
INSURANCE COMPANY, APPELLANT. 
[Cite as Bickers v. W. & S. Life Ins. Co., 
116 Ohio St.3d 351, 2007-Ohio-6751.] 
Employment – Wrongful discharge – No common-law action exists for wrongful 
discharge in violation of public policy for employee who is terminated 
while receiving workers’ compensation – Cause of action for retaliatory 
discharge under R.C. 4123.90 is exclusive remedy for employees claiming 
wrongful termination in violation of rights provided by Workers’ 
Compensation Act. 
(No. 2006-0617 — Submitted March 14, 2007 — Decided December 20, 2007.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County, 
No. C-040342, 2006-Ohio-572. 
__________________ 
SYLLABUS OF THE COURT 
An employee who is terminated from employment while receiving workers’ 
compensation has no common-law cause of action for wrongful discharge 
in violation of the public policy underlying R.C. 4123.90, which provides 
the exclusive remedy for employees claiming termination in violation of 
rights conferred by the Workers’ Compensation Act.  (Coolidge v. 
Riverdale Local School Dist., 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-5357, 797 
N.E.2d 61, limited.)  
__________________ 
 
CUPP, J. 
{¶ 1} In this discretionary appeal, we examine the boundaries of our 
decision in Coolidge v. Riverdale Local School Dist., 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-
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Ohio-5357, 797 N.E.2d 61, and determine whether the tort of wrongful discharge 
in violation of public policy applies to a nonretaliatory discharge of an injured 
worker receiving workers’ compensation benefits. 
{¶ 2} We hold that Coolidge is limited to considerations of “good and 
just cause” for termination under R.C. 3319.16 and does not create a claim of 
wrongful discharge in violation of public policy for an employee who is 
discharged while receiving workers’ compensation. 
I 
{¶ 3} In 1994, appellee, Shelley Bickers, was injured in the course of her 
employment with Western & Southern Life Insurance Company (“Western & 
Southern”).  Bickers filed a claim for workers’ compensation, and the claim was 
allowed for multiple conditions.  Following the injury, and directly related to the 
allowed conditions in the workers’ compensation claim, Bickers experienced 
periods of inability to work.  During such periods, Western & Southern did not 
provide her a position within the restrictions set by her physician.  In 2002, 
Western & Southern terminated Bickers while she was still receiving temporary 
total disability benefits related to her workers’ compensation claim. 
{¶ 4} Bickers filed a complaint for wrongful discharge.  Among other 
things, Bickers alleged that while receiving temporary total disability benefits, she 
had been wrongfully terminated from Western & Southern in violation of the 
state’s public policy.  In support of the foregoing claim, Bickers relied on 
Coolidge v. Riverdale Local School Dist., 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-5357, 
797 N.E.2d 61. 
{¶ 5} In response, Western & Southern filed a Civ.R. 12(B)(6) motion to 
dismiss, which the trial court granted.  Bickers appealed. 
{¶ 6} The court of appeals reversed.  The appellate court determined that 
Bickers’s situation was sufficiently similar to that presented in Coolidge that she 
met the requirements to maintain a Coolidge-based claim of wrongful discharge 
January Term, 2007 
3 
in violation of public policy in a workers’ compensation context.  Bickers v. W. & 
S. Life Ins. Co., Hamilton App. No. C-040342, 2006-Ohio-572.  The appeals court 
also refused to impose the procedural requirements in R.C. 4123.90, concluding 
that compliance with those requirements was not necessary to maintain a 
Coolidge-based public-policy wrongful-discharge claim. 
{¶ 7} Western & Southern then appealed to this court, and we accepted 
jurisdiction. 
II 
{¶ 8} This court’s 17-year history with the tort of “wrongful discharge in 
violation of public policy” has been filled with fits and starts.  For example, the 
tort of wrongful discharge in violation of public policy was first recognized in 
1990.  Greeley v. Miami Valley Maintenance Contrs., Inc. (1990), 49 Ohio St.3d 
228, 234, 551 N.E.2d 981.  Two years later, Greeley was partially overruled, but 
its analysis was reinstated after another two years passed.  See Tulloh v. Goodyear 
Atomic Corp. (1992), 62 Ohio St.3d 541, 584 N.E.2d 729 (partially overruling the 
Greeley decision); Painter v. Graley (1994), 70 Ohio St.3d 377, 639 N.E.2d 51 
(reinstating the Greeley analysis). 
{¶ 9} One of this court’s more recent statements on the tort of wrongful 
discharge in violation of public policy is Coolidge v. Riverdale Local School 
Dist., 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-5357, 797 N.E.2d 61.  In Coolidge, a public 
school district’s board of education discharged one of its teachers while she was 
absent from her duties because of a work-related injury.  The teacher was 
receiving temporary total disability benefits under the workers’ compensation 
system for that injury.  Significantly, the teacher was not an at-will employee.  
The school district employed the teacher under a contract governed by R.C. 
3319.16, which afforded her protection from termination without “good and just 
cause.” 
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{¶ 10} The teacher in Coolidge argued that the “good and just cause” 
provision of R.C. 3319.16 should be construed to protect her from discharge by 
the school district solely because of her absence due to her work-related injury.  
To support her argument, the teacher pointed to R.C. 4123.56, the statute allowing 
temporary total disability compensation, and R.C. 4123.90, the antiretaliation 
statute.1  In resolving the matter, we agreed with the teacher’s argument. 
{¶ 11} Bickers’s claim has afforded us the opportunity to revisit the 
Coolidge decision.  Having duly considered the Coolidge opinion and the 
circumstances presented by Bickers, we limit Coolidge to holding that terminating 
a teacher for absences due to a work-related injury while the teacher is receiving 
workers’ compensation benefits is a termination without “good and just cause” 
under R.C. 3319.16. 2  Because Bickers is not a teacher protected by a contract 
covered by R.C. 3319.16, Bickers is not entitled to the benefit of the holding in 
Coolidge and may not assert a wrongful-discharge claim in reliance on Coolidge.  
Bickers is an at-will employee.  Because Coolidge does not create a cause of 
action for an at-will employee who is terminated for nonretaliatory reasons while 
receiving workers’ compensation, the trial court properly dismissed Bickers’s 
claim. 
                                                 
1.   {¶ a} The relevant text of R.C. 4123.90 provides: 
      {¶ b} “No employer shall discharge, demote, reassign, or take any punitive action against any 
employee because the employee filed a claim or instituted, pursued or testified in any proceedings 
under the workers' compensation act for an injury or occupational disease which occurred in the 
course of and arising out of his employment with that employer.  Any such employee may file an 
action in the common pleas court of the county of such employment in which the relief which may 
be granted shall be limited to reinstatement with back pay, if the action is based upon discharge, or 
an award for wages lost if based upon demotion, reassignment, or punitive action taken, offset by 
earnings subsequent to discharge, demotion, reassignment, or punitive action taken, and payments 
received pursuant to section 4123.56 and Chapter 4141. of the Revised Code plus reasonable 
attorney fees.” 
 
2.  As provided in the first sentence of R.C. 3319.16, “The contract of any teacher employed by 
the board of education of any city, exempted village, local, county, or joint vocational school 
district may not be terminated except for gross inefficiency or immorality; for willful and 
persistent violations of reasonable regulations of the board of education; or for other good and just 
cause.” 
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5 
III 
{¶ 12} In framing the issue presented in Coolidge, we stated that “if 
Coolidge can show that her discharge contravened public policy expressed in the 
Workers’ Compensation Act, she will have established that her discharge was 
without good and just cause under R.C. 3319.16.”  100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-
Ohio-5357, 797 N.E.2d 61, at ¶20.  In resolving the issue, we stated in general 
terms that “[a]n employee who is receiving temporary total disability 
compensation pursuant to R.C. 4123.56 may not be discharged solely on the basis 
of absenteeism or inability to work, when the absence or inability to work is 
directly related to an allowed condition.”  Id. at syllabus.  In applying that general 
syllabus to the narrow issue, we specifically found that since the work-related 
injury for which the teacher received temporary total disability benefits caused 
her absenteeism and inability to work, the school district violated public policy 
when it discharged the teacher.  Id. at ¶52.  Consequently, the school district did 
not have “good and just cause” for discharging the teacher under R.C. 3319.16.  
Id.  
  
{¶ 13} The extent of our syllabus and opinion in Coolidge has been the 
subject of considerable debate.  Some have interpreted Coolidge as expanding the 
public-policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine.  See, e.g., Kusens v. 
Pascal Co., Inc. (C.A.6, 2006), 448 F.3d 349, 365-366; Welty v. Honda of Am. 
Mfg., Inc. (S.D.Ohio 2005), 411 F.Supp.2d 824, 834; Hall v. ITT Automotive 
(N.D.Ohio 2005), 362 F.Supp.2d 952, 962-963.  Others have concluded that 
Coolidge only “expanded the type of action that constitutes retaliation under R.C. 
4123.90 to include termination for absenteeism while on [temporary total 
disability].”  Brooks v. QualChoice, Inc., Cuyahoga App. No. 85692, 2005-Ohio-
5136, ¶11. 
{¶ 14} Commentators have also expressed concern with the decision.  
Ellis, Absenteeism Due to a Work-Related Injury: A Critique of Ohio’s Most 
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Recent Public Policy Exception (2004), 54 Case W.Res.L.Rev. 1415; Siegel & 
Stephen, Baldwin’s Ohio Employment Practices Law (2007), Section 3:39.  One 
commentator stated that it “would not be an overstatement to characterize as 
‘shocking’ the decision issued by the Ohio Supreme Court in [Coolidge].”  
Wilkinson & Perry, Temporary Total and Coolidge: Are Injured Workers 
“Fireproof”? (Nov./Dec. 2003), 18 Workers’ Comp.J. of Ohio 6, 73.  Although 
the goal of permitting “injured workers to recover from a work-related injury 
without fear of losing their job” is laudable, Coolidge has also been viewed as a 
“logistical nightmare.”  Id. at 73.  “[P]reventing employers from managing their 
workforce to ensure production” and creating an opportunity for “malingering and 
abuse in the area of temporary total compensation” are among the noted ills of 
Coolidge’s real world application.  Id. 
{¶ 15} We find it necessary to clarify the Coolidge opinion.  Although 
certain language in Coolidge could be interpreted as creating a new exception to 
the employment-at-will doctrine for employees who are terminated while 
receiving workers’ compensation, a careful reading reveals that the actual holding 
is narrower than the opinion’s overbroad dicta.  The language from the text of the 
opinion provides context and reveals our overall rationale, but the Coolidge court 
decided a very limited issue.  Specifically, the Coolidge court held that judicial 
inquiry is warranted into whether an employer acted contrary to public policy 
when it discharged an employee when R.C. 3319.16 is implicated.  As a result, the 
holding in Coolidge is confined to considerations of whether “good and just 
cause” supported the termination of an employee protected under R.C. 3319.16.  
Coolidge, 100 Ohio St.3d at ¶52. 
{¶ 16} A significant omission from the Coolidge opinion itself supports 
the view that its application is limited: it contains no discussion of the elements of 
a claim of wrongful discharge in violation of public policy as set forth in Painter 
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7 
v. Graley, 70 Ohio St.3d 377, 639 N.E.2d 51,3 and Leininger v. Pioneer Natl. 
Latex, 115 Ohio St.3d 311, 2007-Ohio-4921, 875 N.E.2d 36, ¶8-12.  Clearly, 
Painter was not relevant to the disposition of the Coolidge case because the 
Coolidge holding derived from the “good and just cause” provision of R.C. 
3319.16. 
IV 
{¶ 17} In addition to concluding that Coolidge is inapplicable to Bickers’s 
situation, we also hold that the constitutionally sanctioned, and legislatively 
created, compromise of employer and employee interests reflected in the workers’ 
compensation system precludes a common-law claim of wrongful discharge in 
violation of public policy when an employee files a workers’ compensation claim 
and is discharged for nonretaliatory reasons. 
{¶ 18} This conclusion is supported by the origin and nature of the 
workers’ compensation system.  Prior to the enactment of the Workers’ 
Compensation Act in 1913, common-law tort principles governed recovery for 
work-related injuries.  Fulton, Ohio Workers' Compensation Law (2d Ed.1998) 3, 
Section 1.2.  The common-law system, however, proved unable to address the 
social and economic consequences arising from industrial accidents.  State ex rel. 
Yaple v. Creamer (1912), 85 Ohio St. 349, 389, 97 N.E. 602.  Eventually, it 
became clear that the tort-based system should be replaced by a system charging 
the economic losses incurred by injured Ohio workers and their families, without 
                                                 
3.  {¶ a} These four elements are: 
     {¶ b} “ ‘1. That clear public policy existed and was manifested in a state or federal constitution, 
statute or administrative regulation, or in the common law (the clarity element). 
     {¶ c} “ ‘2. That dismissing employees under circumstances like those involved in the plaintiff's 
dismissal would jeopardize the public policy (the jeopardy element). 
     {¶ d} “ ‘3. The plaintiff's dismissal was motivated by conduct related to the public policy (the 
causation element). 
     {¶ e} “ ‘4. The employer lacked overriding legitimate business justification for the dismissal 
(the overriding justification element).’ ”  (Emphasis sic.)  Painter v. Graley (1994), 70 Ohio St.3d 
377, 639 N.E.2d 51, fn. 8, quoting H. Perritt, The Future of Wrongful Dismissal Claims: Where 
Does Employer Self-Interest Lie? (1989), 58 U.Cin.L.Rev. 397, 398-399. 
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fault or wrongdoing, to the industry rather than to the individual or society as a 
whole.  See, e.g., Indus. Comm. v. Weigandt (1921), 102 Ohio St. 1, 4-5, 130 N.E. 
38; State ex rel. Munding v. Indus. Comm. (1915), 92 Ohio St. 434, 450, 111 N.E. 
299. 
{¶ 19} In this spirit, the people of Ohio adopted a constitutional provision 
authorizing the General Assembly to establish the workers’ compensation system 
by statute.  Section 35, Article II, Ohio Constitution.  This statutory framework 
supplanted, rather than amended or supplemented, the unsatisfactory common-law 
remedies.  Indus. Comm. v. Kamrath (1928), 118 Ohio St. 1, 3-4, 160 N.E. 470; 
Weigandt, 102 Ohio St. at 7, 130 N.E. 38.  Moreover, the Act “operates as a 
balance of mutual compromise between the interests of the employer and the 
employee whereby employees relinquish their common law remedy and accept 
lower benefit levels coupled with the greater assurance of recovery and employers 
give up their common law defenses and are protected from unlimited liability."  
Blankenship v. Cincinnati Milacron Chem., Inc. (1982), 69 Ohio St.2d 608, 614, 
23 O.O.3d 504, 433 N.E.2d 572.  The underlying premise of the workers’ 
compensation system arises from this compromise.  Fulton, Ohio Workers’ 
Compensation Law, at 4, Section 1.2. 
{¶ 20} The policy choice between permitting and prohibiting the 
discharge from employment of an employee who has been injured at work is a 
difficult one, as it inevitably creates a burden of some degree upon either the 
employer or the employee. 
{¶ 21} Should the policy choice be to deny employers the exercise of their 
employment-at-will prerogative and require them to hold open the jobs of injured 
employees for indefinite periods of time, then employers will be burdened with 
employees unable to perform the work for which they were hired and an inability 
to obtain permanent replacements.  This resolution would be particularly onerous 
January Term, 2007 
9 
on small employers with few employees, who lack the ability to shift the duties of 
an injured employee to other employees. 
{¶ 22} Should the policy choice be to permit an employer to terminate a 
worker who is injured on the job and cannot work as a result, then the worker 
suffers not only the burden of being injured but also the burden of unemployment 
at a time when seeking a new position is made more difficult by the injury. 
{¶ 23} In addressing this difficult policy issue, which lacks wholly 
satisfactory solutions, the General Assembly chose to proscribe retaliatory 
discharges only.  Employers may not retaliate against employees for pursuing a 
workers’ compensation claim.  R.C. 4123.90.  It is within the prerogative and 
authority of the General Assembly to make this choice when determining policy 
in the workers’ compensation arena and in balancing, in that forum, employers’ 
and employees’ competing interests.  See, e.g., Rambaldo v. Accurate Die Casting 
(1992), 65 Ohio St.3d 281, 288, 603 N.E.2d 975.  We may not override this 
choice and superimpose a common-law, public-policy tort remedy on this wholly 
statutory system.  Id. 
{¶ 24} Moreover, it would be inappropriate for the judiciary to presume 
the superiority of its policy preference and supplant the policy choice of the 
legislature.  For it is the legislature, and not the courts, to which the Ohio 
Constitution commits the determination of the policy compromises necessary to 
balance the obligations and rights of the employer and employee in the workers’ 
compensation system.  Section 35, Article II, Ohio Constitution. 
{¶ 25} Against this backdrop, it becomes apparent that the imposition of 
common-law principles of wrongful discharge into the workers’ compensation 
arena runs counter to “the balance of mutual compromise between the interests of 
the employer and the employee” as expressed by the General Assembly within the 
Act.  Bickers’s remedy must be found within the workers’ compensation statutes.  
In this regard, however, Bickers conceded early in the litigation that she had not 
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complied with the procedural requirements of R.C. 4123.90.  Because Bickers 
does not assert a statutory retaliatory discharge claim, she fails to state a claim for 
which relief can be granted, and the trial court did not err in dismissing her 
complaint. 
V 
{¶ 26} Therefore, based on the foregoing, we hold that an employee who 
is terminated from employment while receiving workers’ compensation has no 
common-law cause of action for wrongful discharge in violation of the public 
policy underlying R.C. 4123.90, which provides the exclusive remedy for 
employees claiming termination in violation of rights conferred by the Workers’ 
Compensation Act. 
{¶ 27} For the reasons expressed herein, we reverse the judgment of the 
court of appeals. 
Judgment reversed. 
 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL, and LANZINGER, JJ., 
concur. 
 
MOYER, C.J., and PFEIFER, J., dissent. 
__________________ 
 
MOYER, C.J., dissenting. 
I 
{¶ 28} The syllabus of our unanimous decision in Coolidge v. Riverdale 
Local School Dist., 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-5357, 797 N.E.2d 61, states 
that “[a]n employee who is receiving temporary total disability compensation 
pursuant to R.C. 4123.56 may not be discharged solely on the basis of 
absenteeism or inability to work, when the absence or inability to work is directly 
related to an allowed condition.”  The majority states that our holding in that case 
was actually very narrow and is applicable only “to considerations of ‘good and 
just cause’ for termination under R.C. 3319.16.”  Because both the text and 
January Term, 2007 
11 
underlying logic of Coolidge, as well as the nature of the tort of wrongful 
discharge in violation of public policy, belie such a limitation, I respectfully 
dissent. 
{¶ 29} Additionally, since its decision renders the remaining issues in this 
case moot, the majority analyzes only the first of three submitted issues.  Because 
I arrive at a contrary conclusion, I address all three issues herein. 
II 
{¶ 30} The first issue before us is whether Coolidge creates a public-
policy tort claim for wrongful discharge.  An examination of Coolidge reveals 
that we enunciated a clear public policy there that transcends the differences 
between at-will and contract employment. 
{¶ 31} Cheryl Coolidge was receiving temporary total disability benefits 
under an allowed workers’ compensation claim when she was terminated for 
failing to attend work.  Coolidge, 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-5357, 797 
N.E.2d 61, at ¶ 7–11.  She subsequently sued, and her claim proceeded to this 
court for a determination of “whether public policy embodied in the Workers’ 
Compensation Act protects an employee who is receiving [temporary total 
disability] compensation from being discharged solely because of the disabling 
effects of the allowed injury, that is, absenteeism and inability to work.”  Id. at ¶ 
18. 
{¶ 32} We noted from the outset that claims of wrongful discharge in 
violation of public policy, “whether based on workers’ compensation or other 
law, originated, and [were] generally conceived in Ohio and elsewhere, as an 
exception to the employment-at-will doctrine.”  Coolidge, 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 
2003-Ohio-5357, 797 N.E.2d 61, at ¶ 19.  Even though Coolidge was not an at-
will employee—she was a teacher working under a collective-bargaining 
agreement and was protected by R.C. 3319.16 from termination without “good 
and just cause”—we stated that this fact “does not mean that [her employer] can 
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legally terminate Coolidge’s teaching contract for reasons that are repugnant to 
public policy.”  Id. at ¶ 20. 
{¶ 33} After addressing those preliminary concerns, we analyzed the 
prevailing majority and minority views on the issue and adopted the minority 
view that public policy prohibits terminating employees on temporary total 
disability leave.  Id. at ¶ 26–42.  We found support for this policy in R.C. 
4123.56, the Workers’ Compensation Act provision on temporary total disability 
compensation, noting that it was directed at providing financial assistance to 
injured employees so that they may have time to recover from their injuries and 
return to work.  Id. at ¶ 21, 44.  Likewise, we determined that the antiretaliation 
statute in the act, R.C. 4123.90, protects employees who apply for workers’ 
compensation benefits to which they are entitled from losing their jobs.  Id. at ¶ 
43.  Applying that concept to Coolidge’s situation, we determined that, without a 
public-policy provision in place to protect employees from termination while on 
temporary total disability, employees would be forced “to choose between the 
enjoyment of benefits to which [they are] entitled and the loss of employment.”  
(Emphasis omitted.)  Id. 
{¶ 34} Given those determinations, we held that “the policy of protection 
embodied in the Workers’ Compensation Act can be effectuated only if an 
employer is not permitted to discharge an employee for being absent from work 
due to an allowed injury for which the employee is receiving [temporary total 
disability] compensation.”  Coolidge, 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-5357, 797 
N.E.2d 61, at ¶ 46.  We followed this statement with the syllabus language noted 
above.  Only after this public policy was recognized and approved did we apply it 
to the particular facts of Coolidge’s case, noting that “her discharge constitutes a 
violation of public policy and, therefore, is without ‘good and just cause’ under 
R.C. 3319.16 [the statute governing termination of a teacher’s contract].”  Id. at ¶ 
52. 
January Term, 2007 
13 
{¶ 35} Neither the explicitly framed issue nor the syllabus language limits 
this public policy to contract employment situations.  We clearly held that the 
underlying purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act would be defeated if an 
employer could terminate an employee for missing work as a direct result of a 
temporary total disability recognized through a workers’ compensation claim.  
This policy is important regardless of whether one is an at-will employee, a party 
to an employment contract, or protected by a statute that permits termination only 
for “good and just cause.” 
{¶ 36} The majority opinion ignores this clear policy in favor of factual 
distinctions.  It cites the fact that Coolidge was a contract employee while 
appellee Shelley Bickers was not and notes that we did not address the elements 
of a claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy in that case.  I 
acknowledge these differences, but find them to be immaterial. 
{¶ 37} As the majority states, the first element of the four-part test for 
wrongful discharge in violation of public policy is that a “ ‘clear public policy 
existed and was manifested in a state or federal constitution, statute or 
administrative regulation, or in the common law.’ ”  Painter v. Graley (1994), 70 
Ohio St.3d 377, 384, 639 N.E.2d 51, fn. 8, quoting H. Perritt, The Future of 
Wrongful Dismissal Claims: Where Does Employer Self Interest Lie? (1989), 58 
U.Cin.L.Rev. 397, 398.  Our rule is not that a clear public policy must first be 
expressed in an at-will employment case before it can be used to support 
wrongful-discharge claims; so long as one of the listed sources reveals it, the 
policy is sufficient.  See id. 
{¶ 38} While the public policy in Coolidge manifested itself in a case 
about good-and-just-cause termination, it was still manifested in the statutory and 
common law.  Moreover, our opinion plainly invoked the idea of public-policy 
exceptions to at-will employment and noted that the same idea should protect 
someone like Coolidge who was not an at-will employee.  See Coolidge, 100 
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Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-5357, 797 N.E.2d 61, at ¶ 19–20.  Unless we 
explicitly overrule Coolidge, there is no reason to deprive Bickers of the benefit 
of this clear public policy just because she was an at-will employee. 
{¶ 39} While the majority is clearly uncomfortable with the result in 
Coolidge, stare decisis demands that we continue to apply the common law until it 
is overruled.  See Rocky River v. State Emp. Relations Bd. (1989), 43 Ohio St.3d 
1, 4–5, 539 N.E.2d 103.  Limiting the policy to one type of employment is 
inappropriate; it either exists or it does not exist.  Therefore, I would affirm the 
judgment of the court of appeals on this issue. 
III 
{¶ 40} The second issue in this case is whether Wiles v. Medina Auto 
Parts, 96 Ohio St.3d 240, 2002-Ohio-3994, 773 N.E.2d 526, precludes a public-
policy claim premised on Coolidge because the statute adequately protects the 
public interest at issue.  For the following reasons, I would hold that Wiles does 
not prevent Bickers from pursuing her cause of action. 
{¶ 41} Wiles examined the second element of the tort of wrongful 
discharge in violation of public policy, whether “ ‘ “dismissing employees under 
circumstances like those involved in the plaintiff's dismissal would jeopardize the 
public policy.” ’ ”  Id. at ¶ 8, quoting Painter, 70 Ohio St.3d at 384, 639 N.E.2d 
51, fn. 8, quoting Perritt, supra, at 399.  Wiles sought to bring a claim of wrongful 
discharge in violation of public policy premised on the federal Family and 
Medical Leave Act, Section 2601 et seq., Title 29, U.S. Code, arguing that the 
remedies in that statutory scheme did not provide “ ‘make whole tort relief,’ ” 
which jeopardized the clear public policy in favor of family medical leave.  Wiles, 
96 Ohio St.3d 240, 2002-Ohio-3994, 773 N.E.2d 526, at ¶ 19. 
{¶ 42} We disagreed, holding that a public policy is not jeopardized just 
because the statutory scheme does not afford a plaintiff the full panoply of 
damages available in a tort action.  Id. at ¶ 20–22.  Instead, public policy is 
January Term, 2007 
15 
jeopardized only when there are no alternative means of enforcing the public 
policy or, if a particular statute applies, the remedies therein are inadequate.  Id. at 
¶ 15–20.  Under this rule, we rejected Wiles’s claim, as the remedies in the FMLA 
sufficiently addressed his claimed injury.  Id. at ¶ 22. 
{¶ 43} In this case, appellant, Western & Southern Life Insurance 
Company, invokes this rule, arguing that R.C. 4123.90 provides adequate 
statutory remedies to address the public policy identified in Coolidge, and thus 
Bickers’s claim fails the jeopardy element.  I disagree. 
{¶ 44} R.C. 4123.90 provides, “No employer shall discharge, demote, 
reassign, or take any punitive action against any employee because the employee 
filed a claim or instituted, pursued or testified in any proceedings under the 
workers' compensation act for an injury or occupational disease which occurred in 
the course of and arising out of his employment with that employer.”  (Emphasis 
added.)  By its plain language, the statute protects an employee against whom the 
employer has retaliated because the employee filed a claim for compensation or 
otherwise pursued a claim for an injury that occurred in the course and scope of 
employment.  As a remedy, it gives injured employees the ability to seek 
reinstatement with back pay, lost wages, and attorney fees.  Id. 
{¶ 45} However, R.C. 4123.90 does not provide a remedy to employees 
whose employment has been terminated for absenteeism that is directly related to 
the employee’s temporary total disability.  Dismissing employees under such 
circumstances would jeopardize the clear public policy against that action, as it 
would allow an employer to force an employee “to choose between the enjoyment 
of [workers’ compensation] benefits to which he or she is entitled and the loss of 
employment.”  (Emphasis omitted.)  Coolidge, 100 Ohio St.3d 141, 2003-Ohio-
5357, 797 N.E.2d 61, at ¶ 43.  Because R.C. 4123.90 provides no remedy for this 
circumstance, the jeopardy element is met.  I would therefore affirm the holding 
of the court of appeals on this issue. 
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IV 
{¶ 46} The final issue presented for our review is whether Bickers’s claim 
must meet the notice and filing prerequisites set forth in R.C. 4123.90.  Under the 
above reasoning, Bickers’s remedy lies with an action for wrongful discharge in 
violation of public policy, not with R.C. 4123.90.  She was therefore not required 
to comply with its strict procedural limitations.  Because actions for wrongful 
discharge in violation of public policy are not specifically covered by any 
statutory section, they are subject to the general, four-year limitations period set 
forth in R.C. 2305.09(D).  See Pytlinski v. Brocar Prod., Inc. (2002), 94 Ohio 
St.3d 77, 80, 760 N.E.2d 385.  I would therefore affirm the holding of the court of 
appeals on this issue. 
V 
{¶ 47} Given the clear public policy manifested in Coolidge and the lack 
of an adequate statutory remedy for Bickers’s discharge, I would affirm the 
judgment of the court of appeals and allow Bickers to proceed in the trial court on 
her action for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. 
 
PFEIFER, J., concurs in the foregoing opinion. 
__________________ 
 
Kearns Co., L.P.A., and Michael A. Kearns; William D. Snyder & 
Associates and Gregory J. Claycomb; and Gittes & Schulte and Frederick M. 
Gittes, for appellee. 
Frost Brown Todd L.L.C., George E. Yund, Joanne W. Glass, and Kasey 
Bond, for appellant. 
 
Frantz Ward L.L.P., Michael J. Frantz, Keith A. Ashmus, and Kelly S. 
Lawrence, urging reversal for amicus curiae Ohio Management Lawyers 
Association. 
January Term, 2007 
17 
 
Thompson & Bishop and Christy B. Bishop; and Gittes & Schulte and 
Frederick M. Gittes, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Employment 
Lawyers Association. 
_______________________