Title: State ex rel. Rouan v. Indus. Comm'n

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. Rouan v. Indus. Comm., Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-4639.] 
 
 
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. 2012-OHIO-4639 
THE STATE EX REL. ROUAN, 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. Rouan v. Indus. Comm.,  
Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-4639.] 
Workers’ compensation—Temporary total disability compensation—Disability 
retirement—Voluntary abandonment of the work force—Court of appeals' 
judgment denying benefits affirmed. 
(No. 2011-0775—Submitted August 21, 2012—Decided October 11, 2012.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County,  
No. 10AP-36, 2011-Ohio-1897. 
___________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} When determining whether an employee’s retirement bars a 
subsequent request for temporary total disability compensation (“TTC”), two 
considerations predominate: (1) was the retirement precipitated by the workplace 
injury and (2) did the claimant remain in the work force after retiring?  Appellant, 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
2
Patricia Rouan, unsuccessfully sought postretirement TTC, and now challenges 
that denial in this court. 
FACTS 
{¶ 2} Rouan began receiving TTC in 2004 after hurting her leg at work.  
Several months later, she filed a disability-retirement application with the Ohio 
Public Employees Retirement System.  The application attributed Rouan’s 
inability to work exclusively to “major depressive disorder”—a condition that 
appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio had specifically disallowed as part of her 
claim. 
{¶ 3} During the processing of her retirement application, Rouan 
continued to receive TTC for her allowed knee and leg conditions.  In mid-May 
2005, Rouan’s doctor indicated that these conditions had reached maximum 
medical improvement, and pursuant to R.C. 4123.56(A), TTC was stopped.  At 
approximately the same time, Rouan’s retirement application was approved with a 
retroactive retirement date of February 1, 2005.  Rouan left the work force and 
has not worked since. 
{¶ 4} In 2007, Rouan filed an application for permanent total disability 
compensation (“PTD”).  The commission denied the application after finding that 
Rouan’s allowed conditions did not preclude sustained remunerative employment.  
She later successfully moved for the additional allowance of two arthritic knee 
conditions, and a request for renewed TTC followed. 
{¶ 5} The commission denied TTC after finding that Rouan had 
voluntarily abandoned the work force when she took disability retirement for a 
condition that was unrelated to her workplace injury.  The Court of Appeals for 
Franklin County agreed and denied Rouan’s request for a writ of mandamus.  
Rouan now appeals to this court as a matter of right. 
 
 
January Term, 2012 
3 
 
DISCUSSION 
{¶ 6} A claimant who permanently abandons the work force for reasons 
unrelated to the workplace injury cannot collect TTC.  State ex rel. Corman v. 
Allied Holdings, Inc., 132 Ohio St.3d 202, 2012-Ohio-2579, 970 N.E.2d 929, 
¶ 1, citing State ex rel. Pierron v. Indus. Comm., 120 Ohio St.3d 40, 2008-Ohio-
5245, 896 N.E.2d 140, ¶ 9.  As the court explains in Corman, “TTC compensates 
claimants ‘for the loss of earnings which he [or she] incurs while the injury heals.’  
State ex rel. Ashcraft v. Indus. Comm., 34 Ohio St.3d 42, 44, 517 N.E.2d 533 
(1987).  There ‘can be no lost earnings, however, or even a potential for lost 
earnings, if the claimant is no longer part of the active work force.’  Pierron at 
¶ 9.”  Id. at ¶ 5.  See also State ex rel. Rockwell Internatl. v. Indus. Comm., 40 
Ohio St.3d 44, 45-46, 531 N.E.2d 678 (1988) (a claimant who retires for reasons 
unrelated to his or her injury cannot receive TTC since it is the claimant’s own 
action, not the industrial injury, that prevents a return to the former position of 
employment). 
{¶ 7} It is undisputed that Rouan permanently left the work force after 
she retired.  The evidence also indicates that her retirement was not related to her 
workplace injury, but was instead based on a “major depressive disorder” that had 
been specifically disallowed in her claim.  Under Corman and Pierron, the 
commission did not abuse its discretion in refusing to reinstate TTC. 
{¶ 8} Rouan, nevertheless, contends that she cannot be deemed to have 
voluntarily abandoned the entire work force when she took disability retirement in 
2005.  Citing State ex rel. Brown v. Indus. Comm., 68 Ohio St.3d 45, 623 N.E.2d 
55 (1993), Rouan argues that a claimant who is temporarily and totally disabled at 
the time of retirement cannot be deemed to have voluntarily abandoned the work 
force. 
{¶ 9} In Brown, the claimant was incarcerated after the commission had 
awarded him PTD.  As a result of his incarceration, the commission suspended 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
4
Brown’s PTD under the theory that his incarceration amounted to a voluntary 
abandonment of his former job.  We found that the commission’s suspension of 
PTD was contrary to law.  Because Brown was permanently and totally disabled 
before his incarceration, his injury—not his imprisonment—had permanently 
removed him from the work force.  Id. at 49.  We reasoned that “once a worker 
has been declared permanently and totally disabled he or she is incapable of 
returning to work.”  Id. at 48.  Accordingly, we held that a claimant like Brown 
who has a permanent and total disability is incapable of abandoning the work 
force because the claimant has already been permanently removed from the work 
force by reason of his or her injury.  Id. at 48-49.  We also stated, however, that a 
“claimant can abandon a former position or remove himself or herself from the 
work force only if he or she has the physical capacity for employment at the time 
of abandonment or removal.”  Id. at 48. 
{¶ 10} Brown does not advance Rouan’s cause for two reasons.  First, 
unlike the claimant who suffered the workplace injury in Brown, Rouan suffered a 
temporary but not a permanent disability.  Rouan’s leg injury foreclosed a return 
to her former job, but it did not medically disqualify her from other employment.  
Two years after her disability retirement was approved, Rouan filed an application 
for PTD.  The commission denied her application, finding that Rouan’s allowed 
conditions did not preclude sustained remunerative employment.  Thus, unlike the 
claimant in Brown, whose abandonment of the work force could only be deemed 
involuntary because of his permanent and total disability, Rouan voluntarily 
removed herself from the work force by taking disability retirement, because she 
still had the physical ability to work. 
{¶ 11} Second, as noted the claimant’s decision in Brown to engage in 
criminal activity could not be considered a voluntary abandonment of his former 
job because his industrial injury—as demonstrated by his receipt of PTD—had 
removed him from the work force before his incarceration did.  Hence, Brown’s 
January Term, 2012 
5 
 
incarceration did not negate the “causal relationship between the work-related 
injury suffered by [Brown] and his * * * absence from the work force.”  Id. at 49. 
{¶ 12} In contrast, there is only one reason why Rouan did not return to 
the work force: she suffers from a “major depressive disorder,” a condition that is 
unrelated to her workplace injury.  Her disability retirement negated the causal 
relationship between her work-related injury and her absence from the work force.  
Thus, she cannot take advantage of the reasoning upon which Brown is based, 
rendering her reliance on that decision misplaced. 
{¶ 13} Pursuant to Corman and Pierron, we affirm the judgment of the 
court of appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
Schiavoni, Schiavoni, Bush & Muldowney, Shawn R. Muldowney, and 
Joseph J. Bush III, for appellant. 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Kevin J. Reis, Assistant Attorney 
General, for appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio. 
Paul J. Gains, Mahoning County Prosecuting Attorney, and Elizabeth M. 
Phillips, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee Mahoning County. 
______________________