PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-1943

CALVIN BARTON; SHAMIKA CURETON; LATOYA JAMISON; LISA 

JAMISON; TERRANCE JOHNSON; KELLY PARDUE; PAULINE WARREN;

ANNA EDENS; ANTONIO MILLER; STACEY JOHNSON; SHERRY PERALTA;

NATASHA ATKINSON; PAMELA VAUGHN; QUASHONDA CHAPMAN; SHIRLEY

BAISEY; BILLY HARRIS; CONSTANCE NEAL,

Plaintiffs - Appellees,

and

JORGE CASTELLANOS; DENISE BLACKWELL; BRIAN BROWNLEE; JOSEPH

HOPKINS; TERESA HARRIS,

Plaintiffs,

v.

HOUSE OF RAEFORD FARMS, INCORPORATED, d/b/a Columbia Farms, 

Incorporated,

Defendant - Appellant.

No. 12-1945

SHIREN JOHNSON; SAMANTHA EARL,

Plaintiffs - Appellees,

and

TAWANA BLANDIN; TERESA CALIXTO; ELODIA CARRERA; ERNADID 

GARRIBO CASTILLO; LORENA CASTILLO CORRALE; NATALIE DORANTES; 

RUFFINA FELIPE; MARIA DOMINGO GOMEZ; SILVIA HERNANDEZ;
2

LUCIANO HERNANDEZ LEMOS; MATEO FRANCISCO LORENZO; ANGEL 

RODRIGUEZ,

Plaintiffs,

v.

HOUSE OF RAEFORD FARMS, INCORPORATED, d/b/a Columbia Farms, 

Incorporated,

Defendant - Appellant.

No. 12-1946

JACKIE BLAND; TAMORTHA BRUSTER; MYRTLE BRYSON; ANTONIO 

BURTS, a/k/a Antonio Burch; STEVEN CASE,

Plaintiffs - Appellees,

v.

HOUSE OF RAEFORD FARMS, INCORPORATED, d/b/a Columbia Farms,

Incorporated,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District 

of South Carolina, at Greenville. J. Michelle Childs, District 

Judge. (6:09-cv-01901-JMC; 6:09-cv-03137-JMC; 6:10-cv-00928-

JMC)

Argued: September 18, 2013 Decided: March 11, 2014

Before NIEMEYER, KING, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part; reversed in part by published opinion. Judge 

Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge Agee joined. Judge 

King wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
3

ARGUED: James Larry Stine, WIMBERLY, LAWSON, STECKEL, SCHNEIDER 

& STINE, PC, Atlanta, Georgia, for Appellant. Nancy B. 

Bloodgood, FOSTER LAW FIRM, LLC, Daniel Island, South Carolina, 

for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Elizabeth K. Dorminey, WIMBERLY, 

LAWSON, STECKEL, SCHNEIDER & STINE, P.C., Atlanta, Georgia, for 

Appellant. Lucy C. Sanders, FOSTER LAW FIRM, LLC, Charleston, 

South Carolina, for Appellees.
4

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

Numerous former employees and some current employees of 

House of Raeford Farms, Inc., d/b/a Columbia Farms, Inc., 

(“Columbia Farms”), a chicken processor in Greenville, South 

Carolina, commenced three separate actions against Columbia 

Farms, asserting two types of claims: first, for the payment of 

unpaid wages, withheld in violation of the Fair Labor Standards 

Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., and the South Carolina 

Payment of Wages Act (“S.C. Wages Act”), S.C. Code Ann. §§ 41-

10-10 to -110, and second, for retaliating against them for 

instituting workers’ compensation proceedings, in violation of 

S.C. Code Ann. § 41-1-80. The district court granted Columbia 

Farms’ motion for summary judgment on the unpaid wages claims 

under the FLSA but denied it on the unpaid wages claims under 

the S.C. Wages Act and the retaliation claims. After the 

actions were consolidated, a jury returned a verdict in favor of 

16 employees on the S.C. Wages Act claims, awarding them $16,583 

in the aggregate, which the district court trebled to $49,749. 

The court also awarded attorneys’ fees and costs on these claims 

in the amount of $227,640. Following a bench trial on the 

retaliation claims, the court found in favor of 8 employees, 

ordering that 5 be reinstated and awarding back pay in the 

aggregate amount of $131,742.
5

On Columbia Farms’ appeal, we reverse the jury award on the 

S.C. Wages Act claims, concluding that those claims were

preempted by § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act

(“LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 185, and should have been dismissed. As 

to the retaliation claims under S.C. Code Ann. § 41-1-80, we 

reverse as to 6 employees because they failed to present 

evidence satisfying the governing legal standards for recovery

under state law. As to the retaliation claims of the remaining 

two employees -- Billy Harris and Lisa Jamison -- we affirm.

I

S.C. Wages Act claims

The wages paid to the production and maintenance employees 

at Columbia Farms’ plant in Greenville were governed by a 

collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) with the United Food and 

Commercial Workers’ Union, Local No. 1996, CLC (“the Union”). 

Among other terms, the CBA provided that the basic work day was 

8 hours and the basic work week was 40 hours, and it spelled out 

the hourly rates of pay for the different classes of employees. 

With respect to those rates, the CBA noted that in November 

2004, Columbia Farms and the Union had negotiated a change to 

the company’s “meal and rest policy” in exchange for a one-time 

3.1% raise to the affected employees’ hourly rate. Under the 

revised policy, instead of receiving “an unpaid lunch period and 
6

paid breaks,” employees were to receive one “unpaid meal period 

and [one] unpaid rest period per day, totaling approximately 

sixty (60) minutes, [with] the allocation between the meal and 

rest periods to be allocated by the Company.” The CBA also 

specified that Columbia Farms would maintain “[a] daily record . 

. . with the use of adequate time clocks at each plant” and that 

“[t]he Union [would] have the right to examine time sheets and 

any other records pertaining to the computation of compensation 

of any employee whose pay [was] in dispute.” Columbia Farms

further agreed “not to enter into any other Agreement or 

contract with its employees, individually or collectively, which 

in any way conflict[ed] with the terms and provisions of this 

Agreement.” Finally, the agreement established a grievance 

procedure with respect to any dispute “aris[ing] over the 

interpretation” of the CBA and provided for arbitration for any 

grievance that could not be settled.

The CBA did not expressly specify how employees’ 

compensable time would be calculated, but Columbia Farms had a 

long-standing practice of paying its production employees based 

on “line time” -- that is, the time actually spent by employees 

processing chickens on the production line. “Line time” did not 

include time spent donning and doffing protective gear, walking 

to and from the production area, or washing gear before and 

after work. Columbia Farms stopped the production line for two 
7

30-minute periods per shift to provide employees with meal 

breaks, which, under the CBA, were not counted as compensable 

time.

When new employees were hired, they were given a form at 

orientation entitled “Terms of Employment,” which indicated that 

its purpose was to notify employees “of the terms of 

employment,” as required by South Carolina Code § 41-10-30. The 

form was filled out to specify each worker’s hourly rate of pay 

and, in a blank next to “hours of work,” the general hours for 

that worker’s scheduled shift -- for example, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Columbia Farms also gave its new employees an Employee 

Handbook, which, in a section on “Time Card Administration,” 

stated that “[t]he purpose of the time card is to insure an 

accurate record of all hours you work in order for you to 

receive correct payment of wages”; that “[y]ou are required to 

punch in and out on your own time card according to your 

schedule”; and that “[i]t is our policy that all work performed 

by you will be while you are ‘on the clock.’” The Handbook 

further specified that “[y]ou must be dressed for work when 

punching in or out”; that “[e]mployees are to be at their 

workstations ready and dressed for work at their scheduled 

starting time and are to remain at their workstations until the 

scheduled quitting time”; and that “[y]ou will be paid for all 

time worked per your schedule.” The Handbook also stated that 
8

employees would receive two 30-minute lunch breaks during each 

shift.

According to a number of former employees who testified at 

trial, Columbia Farms never informed them when they were hired 

that their hours would be based on “line time,” as distinct from 

“clock time.” These employees stated that, instead, they were 

told at orientation that they would be working a set nine-hour 

shift and that they would be paid based on when they clocked in 

and out for that shift. Although some acknowledged that they 

were also told that their two 30-minute lunch breaks would be 

unpaid, they estimated that they ended up having only 10 to 20 

minutes in the break room during each break because of the time 

it took to walk to and from the break room, to don and doff 

protective clothing, and to wash up.

In 2009, a group of the Greenville plant’s former 

employees, as well as a few of its current employees, all of 

whom were members of the bargaining unit covered by the CBA, 

sued Columbia Farms for wages due, based on the FLSA and the 

S.C. Wages Act, asserting that they should have been paid for 

the time they spent donning and doffing protective gear and 

preparing for work. They also asserted that because their 

actual break time was less than 20 minutes, Columbia Farms was 

required, in accordance with federal regulations, to compensate 

them for that time. Their claims under the S.C. Wages Act 
9

included allegations that Columbia Farms failed to notify them 

in writing as to the hours they would be working when they were 

hired.

The district court granted Columbia Farms’ motion for 

summary judgment on the plaintiffs’ FLSA claims, based on 

Sepulveda v. Allen Family Foods, Inc., 591 F.3d 209 (4th Cir. 

2009), which held that donning and doffing protective gear at a 

poultry processing plant constituted “changing clothes” within 

the meaning of 29 U.S.C. § 203(o) and that employers and unions 

could address whether such time would be compensated through 

collective bargaining. The district court in this case 

concluded that because Columbia Farms, like the employer in 

Sepulveda, had a long-standing practice under a bona fide 

collective bargaining agreement of paying its employees based on 

“line time,” the plaintiffs were not entitled to compensation 

for the time spent donning and doffing protective gear. The 

court also granted Columbia Farms’ motion for summary judgment 

on plaintiffs’ similar claims under the S.C. Wages Act “[t]o the 

extent that those claims ar[o]se from Columbia Farms’s failure 

to pay Plaintiffs for their time spent donning and doffing 

sanitary and protective gear.” Atkinson v. House of Raeford 

Farms, Inc., No. 6:09-cv-01901-JMC, 2011 WL 1526605, at *5 

(D.S.C. Apr. 20, 2011).
10

With respect to whether Columbia Farms had complied with 

the S.C. Wages Act in providing required written notices, giving 

adequate breaks, providing accurate pay statements, and paying 

full wages due when employees were terminated, the district 

court denied Columbia Farms’ motion for summary judgment, 

concluding that “there appeared to be genuine issues of material

fact regarding whether Columbia Farms complied with [the Act].” 

Atkinson, 2011 WL 1526605, at *5. Those claims, accordingly, 

were presented to a jury.

Before trial, Columbia Farms contended that the plaintiffs’

S.C. Wages Act claims were preempted by § 301 of the LMRA, 

arguing that the plaintiffs’ efforts to collect allegedly unpaid 

wages under the state statute necessarily implicated the CBA and 

therefore should have been dismissed. The district court 

rejected the argument, ruling that the plaintiffs could prevail 

on their S.C. Wages Act claims by proving (1) that they were not 

notified at the time of employment that they would be paid “line 

time” and were instead led to believe that they would be paid 

“clock time;” (2) that this understanding became part of the 

agreed-upon terms and conditions of their employment; and (3) 

that Columbia Farms had failed to honor this agreement and 

therefore owed them unpaid wages for the difference between 

“clock time” and “line time.” The district court thus held that 

the S.C. Wages Act claims were not preempted because the
11

plaintiffs’ theory of recovery did not depend on the meaning of 

the CBA but on the alleged breach of separate agreements to pay 

“clock time.”

The jury returned a verdict in favor of 16 plaintiffs, 

awarding them unpaid wages ranging from $53 to $2,433, for a 

total of $16,583. And the district court trebled the damages, 

as authorized by state law, to $49,749, finding that no bona

fide dispute existed regarding the wages the plaintiffs were 

due. The court explained:

Columbia Farms had a practice of paying its employees 

according to line time; however, neither the CBA nor 

the terms of employment provided to Plaintiffs 

indicated that employees were to be paid according to 

line time. At trial, Plaintiffs presented evidence 

that Columbia Farms led them to believe that they 

would be paid based on the amount of hours that they 

were clocked-in at work. . . . Accordingly, to the 

extent the jury found that Columbia Farms did not pay 

all wages due to Plaintiffs, the court finds that no 

bona fide dispute existed as to the payment of those 

wages.

Atkinson v. House of Raeford Farms, Inc., No. 6:09-cv-01901-JMC, 

2012 WL 2871747, at *3 (D.S.C. July 12, 2012). The court also 

awarded prejudgment interest, pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 34-

31-20(A), and attorneys’ fees and costs in the amount of 

$227,640.

Workers’ compensation retaliation claims

A group of former employees also alleged that Columbia 

Farms had violated their rights under S.C. Code Ann. § 41-1-80, 
12

which prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who 

have instituted workers’ compensation proceedings.

Following a bench trial, the district court found in favor 

of eight employees, concluding that their employment had been 

terminated because they had instituted workers’ compensation 

proceedings. Atkinson v. House of Raeford Farms, Inc., 874 F. 

Supp. 2d 456, 483 (D.S.C. 2012).

The court found that Columbia Farms carried out its 

retaliation in the context of a “point system” designed to 

enforce its attendance policy at its Greenville plant. Under 

the point system, employees who reached a total of five points 

were fired -- points were accumulated by the failure to follow 

the attendance policy and subtracted when an employee worked for 

30 days without receiving any new points. Thus, employees who 

arrived late to work, returned to work late after a break, or 

left work early received half a point. Employees who missed 

work Tuesday through Friday received one point, and employees 

missing work Saturday through Monday received a point and a 

half. If an employee provided Columbia Farms with two days’

notice and a medical excuse for an absence, the employee 

received no points. If an employee provided the medical excuse 

but not the required advanced notice, the employee received one 

point for the entire medically excused absence, even if it was 

longer than one day. But, as the district court noted, “[a]n 
13

employee did not receive any points for workers’ compensation 

injuries, absences, or approved doctor’s visits when the 

employee visited the company doctor.” Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d

at 462.

Teresa Taylor, Columbia Farms’ plant nurse, was authorized 

to make the decision whether to send employees to the company 

doctor for medical treatment, and she did not do so when she 

thought their injuries required only first aid or were not work 

related. In this vein, Taylor concluded that an employee’s 

overuse of her hands on the production line amounted to “sore 

hands,” which were to be treated as a matter of first aid. 

Accordingly, for such complaints, she did not complete a 

workers’ compensation form. While employees with workers’ 

compensation injuries or restrictions received accommodation, 

such as light duty, employees “with injuries or restrictions 

that were not considered to be related to a workers’ 

compensation injury were not permitted to return to work until 

the employee provided Columbia Farms with a doctor’s note 

stating that the employee had no medical restrictions.” 

Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d at 463.

Trial testimony indicated that supervisors at the plant 

kept a list of employees who frequently visited the nurse’s 

office or who went to a private doctor for medical care. For 

example, one shift manager testified that he had received lists 
14

from the nurse’s office with the names of employees who had 

worked less than 60 days and had been to the nurse’s office 

multiple times.

Six of the plaintiffs -- Natasha Atkinson, Anna Edens, 

Shiren Johnson, Shirley Baisey, Tamortha Bruster, and Steven 

Case -- testified at trial that they had visited the nurse’s 

station complaining of sore or injured hands and were given 

first aid treatment, such as gauze, topical pain reliever, 

ibuprofen, and hand massages. Five of the six had requested 

permission to visit the company doctor, but Taylor denied their 

requests. Instead, they visited private doctors or emergency 

rooms, receiving notes stating that they were unable to work for 

a specified period of time or that placed other restrictions on 

their ability to work. Taylor told several of these employees 

that they would not be allowed to return to work until they 

could provide a doctor’s note saying that they could work 

without restrictions. When three of the employees -- Atkinson, 

Edens, and Johnson -- were unable to obtain such notes, their 

employment was terminated. The others -- Baisey, Bruster, and 

Case -- were given attendance points based on absences for which 

they had a doctor’s note, and when those points were combined 

with other points that they had accumulated, their totals

reached five points or more, leading to their discharge. The 

district court found that if Taylor had considered their 
15

injuries to be work related and accordingly had allowed them to 

visit the company doctor, these employees would not have 

accumulated the final points that caused their discharge.

The two other prevailing plaintiffs -- Billy Harris and 

Lisa Jamison -- sustained workplace injuries that Columbia Farms 

acknowledged as such. Harris fell down the stairs while at work 

and injured his back, and Jamison slipped and fell at work, 

injuring her back, hip, neck, and shoulder. Both were seen by 

the company doctor.

The doctor placed Harris on light duty for several weeks, 

and Columbia Farms made an accommodation for this restriction, 

giving Harris different job responsibilities. The doctor 

eventually released Harris to full duty, but told him to visit 

the nurse’s station if his back began to hurt. While working on 

the production line, Harris began experiencing pain and so told 

his supervisor. The district court credited Harris’s testimony 

that he eventually received his supervisor’s permission to leave 

the line to visit the nurse’s station. When he reached the 

nurse’s station, however, the plant’s human resources manager 

was waiting for him and told him that he was being fired for 

leaving the line without permission. After he was fired, Harris 

continued receiving treatment from the company doctor, and an 

MRI showed that he had a bulging disc. Harris acknowledged that 

from the time of his discharge in July 2009 until at least
16

February 2010, he could not have performed his normal job at 

Columbia Farms due to medical restrictions given to him by the 

company doctor.

Similarly, Columbia Farms’ doctor placed Jamison on light 

duty after her fall at work in May 2009. She testified that “a 

supervisor at Columbia Farms told her that Taylor was going to 

get her fired because of her injury.” Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d 

at 471. Jamison submitted notes from the company doctor setting 

forth her work restrictions and advising that she take frequent 

breaks from the use of her shoulder, which she understood to 

mean that she should walk around to loosen up her shoulder or go 

to the nurse’s station when she began having pain. In Jamison’s 

presence, Taylor called the company doctor to verify that 

Jamison could take breaks as needed.

A few weeks after Jamison filed a workers’ compensation 

claim, the human resources manager found Jamison outside her 

assigned work area on three occasions and fired her, stating 

that she had taken excessive breaks. The district court 

credited Jamison’s testimony that each time the human resources 

manager saw her, she was on her way back from the nurse’s 

station. After her discharge, Jamison began collecting social 

security payments for a disability unrelated to her work at 

Columbia Farms. At trial in November 2011, however, Jamison 
17

testified that she had been physically able to go back to her 

old job at Columbia Farms for approximately nine months.

Based on the factual circumstances presented, the district 

court concluded that Columbia Farms violated S.C. Code Ann. §

41-1-80 (prohibiting employers from discharging or demoting 

employees who have in good faith “instituted” a “proceeding 

under the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Law”). To 

determine whether the plaintiffs had “instituted” a workers’ 

compensation proceeding, the court applied the following test:

[W]hile the mere seeking and receiving of medical 

treatment is not sufficient to constitute the 

institution of a workers’ compensation claim, an 

employee’s seeking or receiving of medical treatment 

from the employer accompanied by circumstances which 

would lead the employer to infer that a workers’

compensation claim is likely to be filed is sufficient 

to institute a workers’ compensation proceeding for

the purposes of Section 41-1-80.

Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d at 475. As to Atkinson, Edens, 

Johnson, Baisey, Bruster, and Case, the court found that their 

“receipt of treatment for their injuries from the nurse’s 

office, combined with their requests to visit the company doctor 

or Taylor’s representation to them that they had to see a 

private doctor, and their submission of documentation to 

Columbia Farms showing that they had sought medical care for 

their injuries [was] sufficient to constitute the institution of 

workers’ compensation proceedings.” Id. at 477 (emphasis 

added); see also id. at 478-80.
18

As to the plaintiffs’ burden to prove a causal connection 

between their institution of a workers’ compensation proceeding 

and the termination of their employment, the court concluded 

that eight plaintiffs had also satisfied this element of their 

case, explaining:

Section 41-1-80 does not provide an employee with the 

right to a reasonable period of time to rehabilitate 

from an injury and demonstrate the ability to perform 

his job duties. However, where an employer sets forth 

the employee’s inability to perform his job duties as 

the employer’s reason for terminating the employee, 

evidence that the employer had a policy of 

accommodating employees with workers’ compensation 

injuries, coupled with the employers’ failure to 

accommodate the plaintiff may support that plaintiff’s 

assertion that the employer’s proffered reason for 

termination was mere pretext.

Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d at 476. The court relied on this 

principle in finding that these plaintiffs had established the 

requisite causal connection between the termination of their 

employment and their institution of workers’ compensation 

proceedings, rejecting as mere pretext Columbia Farms’ 

explanation based on application of its attendance policy.

The district court ordered reinstatement as to each of the 

five prevailing plaintiffs who had sought it -- Atkinson, Edens, 

Johnson, Baisey, and Jamison. It found that Johnson and Jamison 

had failed to mitigate their damages and therefore were not 

entitled to back wages, but with respect to the remaining 
19

prevailing plaintiffs, the court awarded damages ranging from 

$1,076 to $55,331, for a total of $131,742.

II

Columbia Farms contends first that the plaintiffs’ claims 

under the S.C. Wages Act were preempted by § 301 of the LMRA and 

should have been dismissed. It argues that the state statute 

provides for an enforcement mechanism designed to ensure that 

employees timely receive all the wages to which they are 

entitled under an employment contract. As such, it contends, 

the plaintiffs’ entitlement to unpaid wages necessarily turned

on the application and construction of the CBA, which 

established the terms and conditions of the plaintiffs’ 

employment at the plant through both its express terms and the 

custom and practice that developed under it. Columbia Farms

argues that instead of recognizing that the S.C. Wages Act 

claims for unpaid wages were preempted, the district court 

improperly allowed the jury to find that the plaintiffs entered 

into separate agreements with Columbia Farms as to the manner by 

which their compensable time would be calculated, even though 

the CBA explicitly prohibited such side agreements.

The plaintiffs contend that, rather than being preempted 

under § 301 of the LMRA, the S.C. Wages Act provides remedies 

for when an employer “fail[s] to inform [e]mployees in writing 
20

at the time of hire how much they would be paid and what hours 

they were required to work.” In other words, they maintain that 

the S.C. Wages Act is a “notice statute” and that all Columbia 

Farms “had to do to comply with the [Act] when it hired 

Employees was to indicate in writing that employees were paid 

based on ‘line time.’” Because Columbia Farms failed to do that 

and instead informed new employees that they would be paid based 

on when they clocked in and out, the plaintiffs argue that they 

were entitled under the state statute to recover the difference 

in their wages between “line time” and “clock time,” regardless 

of what the CBA actually provided or the long-standing custom 

and practice at the plant had been. They thus argue that their 

S.C. Wages Act claims did not depend on the CBA and were 

therefore not preempted.

The S.C. Wages Act was designed to “protect employees from 

the unjustified and wilful retention of wages by the employer.” 

Rice v. Multimedia, Inc., 456 S.E.2d 381, 383 (S.C. 1995). The 

Act provides employees in South Carolina with a cause of action 

to recover for an employer’s “failure to pay wages due to an 

employee as required by Section 41-10-40 or 41-10-50.” S.C. 

Code Ann. § 41-10-80(C). In turn, § 41-10-40 directs South 

Carolina employers to timely pay their employees “all wages 

due,” and § 41-10-50 similarly provides that when a South 

Carolina employer discharges an employee, it must timely pay 
21

that employee “all wages due.” See also Mathis v. Brown & Brown

of S.C., Inc., 698 S.E.2d 773, 781 (S.C. 2010). The S.C. Wages 

Act defines the term “wages” as “all amounts at which labor 

rendered is recompensed, whether the amount is fixed or 

ascertained on a time, task, piece, or commission basis, or 

other method of calculating the amount and includes vacation, 

holiday, and sick leave payments which are due to an employee 

under any employer policy or employment contract.” S.C. Code 

Ann. § 41-10-10(2) (emphasis added); see also Allen v. Pinnacle 

Healthcare Sys., LLC, 715 S.E.2d 362, 365 (S.C. Ct. App. 2011) 

(“The Act also defines ‘wages’ as ‘all amounts . . . which are 

due to an employee under any . . . employment contract’”

(omissions in original) (quoting S.C. Code Ann. § 41-10-10(2))).

In essence, the plaintiffs’ cause of action under S.C. Code 

Ann. § 41-10-80(C) is based on their claim that Columbia Farms 

owed them unpaid wages resulting from its failure to count their 

hours in accordance with employment contracts that were based on 

what Columbia Farms told them when they were hired and that 

stood separate and apart from the CBA. We conclude, however, 

that such a theory of recovery cannot support their claims

because of the CBA’s terms and the supremacy of federal law that 

provides for the CBA’s enforcement.

Any wages owed to the plaintiffs in this case were 

necessarily those agreed to in the CBA negotiated between the 
22

Union and Columbia Farms. That is the only contract on which 

their S.C. Wages Act claims can be based, inasmuch as the CBA

provides that it was to be the exclusive contract of employment, 

with Columbia Farms specifically agreeing with the Union that it 

would not “enter into any other Agreement or contract with its 

employees, individually or collectively, which in any way 

conflicts with the terms and provisions of this Agreement.” And 

the CBA’s terms were binding on the plaintiffs as members of the 

bargaining unit.

As to wages, the parties agreed in the CBA to an 8-hour day 

and a 40-hour week as the “basic” work day and work week and to 

a specified rate of pay per hour “for all hours worked.” Also, 

as the district court recognized, the company and its employees 

had operated for years under a custom and practice of the CBA 

that the “hours worked” be calculated based on “line time.” The 

CBA also provided for two unpaid breaks during a work day, 

totaling approximately 60 minutes, “the allocation between the 

meal and rest periods to be allocated by the Company.” 

Moreover, should any employee have a dispute “aris[ing] over the 

interpretation” of those provisions, he or she was required to 

follow the specified grievance procedure and, ultimately, the 

arbitration procedure.

It is therefore apparent that the plaintiffs’ claims under 

the S.C. Wages Act are nothing other than a disagreement with 
23

Columbia Farms’ interpretation of how to calculate their “hours 

worked” under the CBA, including the two unpaid breaks provided

for in the CBA. The company asserts that compensable time was 

properly measured based on “line time,” so that employees would 

start being paid when the line commenced and would no longer be 

paid when the line stopped, either for breaks or at the end of 

the shift. The plaintiffs assert that compensable time was to 

be measured generally by when they were “on the clock” and, as 

to the breaks, when they were in the break room after having 

taken off their protective gear and washed up. While both sides 

have looked to a range of evidence to resolve the dispute --

e.g., the representations at orientation, the Employee Handbook, 

and the practices followed -- the question at bottom remains 

what the CBA intended. For this reason, we conclude that the 

dispute under the S.C. Wages Act necessarily implicates an 

interpretation of the CBA and therefore that the proceedings are 

preempted by § 301 of the LMRA.

Section 301 of the LMRA provides that “suits for violation 

of contracts between an employer and a labor organization 

representing employees . . . may be brought in any district 

court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties.” 

29 U.S.C. § 185(a). This provision “not only provides federal 

courts with jurisdiction over employment disputes covered by 

collective bargaining agreements, but also directs federal 
24

courts to fashion a body of federal common law to resolve such 

disputes.” McCormick v. AT&T Tech., Inc., 934 F.2d 531, 534

(4th Cir. 1991) (en banc). Moreover, to ensure uniform 

interpretation of collective bargaining agreements and to 

protect the power of arbitrators, the Supreme Court has found 

that § 301 preempts and entirely displaces “any state cause of 

action for violation of contracts between an employer and a 

labor organization.” Franchise Tax Bd. v. Constr. Laborers 

Vacation Trust, 463 U.S. 1, 23 (1983) (emphasis added) (internal 

quotation marks and citation omitted). As a result, a plaintiff 

may not rely on state law “as an independent source of private 

rights to enforce collective bargaining contracts.” Caterpillar

Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 394 (1987) (internal quotation 

marks and citation omitted). Not only does this mean that a 

plaintiff may not pursue a state law breach of contract claim to 

enforce a collective bargaining agreement, but it also means

that a plaintiff may not “evade the requirements of § 301” 

through artful pleading. Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 

U.S. 202, 211 (1985). Accordingly, when resolution of a state

law claim depends substantially on the analysis of a collective

bargaining agreement’s terms, it must either be treated as a 

claim under § 301, subject to dismissal if the collective

bargaining agreement’s grievance and arbitration procedures have 

not been followed, or alternatively be dismissed as preempted by 
25

§ 301. Id. at 220-21; see also Davis v. Bell Atl.-W. Va., Inc., 

110 F.3d 245, 247 (4th Cir. 1997).

To be sure, the Supreme Court has pointed out that “§ 301 

cannot be read broadly to pre-empt nonnegotiable rights 

conferred on individual employees as a matter of state law.” 

Livadas v. Bradshaw, 512 U.S. 107, 123 (1994). And “when the 

meaning of contract terms is not the subject of dispute, the 

bare fact that a collective-bargaining agreement will be 

consulted in the course of state-law litigation plainly does not 

require the claim to be extinguished.” Id. at 124. But when 

the evaluation of the state law claim “is inextricably 

intertwined with consideration of the terms of the labor 

contract,” Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 213, such that it is 

necessary to interpret the collective bargaining agreement to 

resolve the claim, Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 

U.S. 399, 409-10 (1988), the claim is preempted under § 301. 

Accordingly, “it is the legal character of a claim, as 

independent of rights under the collective-bargaining agreement 

(and not whether a grievance arising from precisely the same set 

of facts could be pursued) that decides whether a state cause of 

action may go forward.” Livadas, 512 U.S. at 123-24 (internal 

quotation marks and citations omitted).

In this case, the plaintiffs cannot claim independent state 

contract rights because the wages that they claim are due were 
26

addressed by the CBA, which provided further that it was the 

exclusive contract governing the wages to be paid by Columbia 

Farms to the members of the bargaining unit. At a more 

particular level, this case is nothing more than a suit for the 

collection of wages based on whether “hours worked,” as that 

term is used in the CBA, should be computed based on “line time”

or “clock time.” Accordingly, we hold that the plaintiffs’

claims under the S.C. Wages Act are preempted by § 301 of the 

LMRA and should not have been submitted to the jury.

The plaintiffs seek to avoid this conclusion by disavowing 

reliance on the collective bargaining agreement and asserting 

that their claims are based on a notice provision of the S.C.

Wages Act, which provides that “[e]very employer shall notify 

each employee in writing at the time of hiring of the normal 

hours and wages agreed upon, the time and place of payment, and 

the deductions which will be made from the wages, including 

payments to insurance programs.” S.C. Code Ann. § 41-10-30(A). 

The plaintiffs argue that Columbia Farms violated this provision 

when it failed “to indicate in writing that employees were paid 

based on ‘line time.’”

First, it is far from clear whether § 41-10-30(A) required 

Columbia Farms to provide written notice to its employees that 

their “normal hours” would be measured based on “line time.” 

See Carolina Alliance for Fair Emp’t v. S.C. Dep’t of Labor, 
27

Licensing & Regulation, 523 S.E.2d 795, 802 (S.C. Ct. App. 1999) 

(rejecting plaintiffs’ position that “the exact amount of the 

employee’s wages must be disclosed” under the Act). 

Nonetheless, reading § 41-10-30(A) as plaintiffs would have it

would still not provide the plaintiffs with a remedy, as the 

S.C. Wages Act specifies that the remedy for an employer’s 

violation of § 41-10-30 is “a written warning by the Director of 

the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation or his 

designee for the first offense and . . . a civil penalty of not 

more than one hundred dollars for each subsequent offense.” 

S.C. Code Ann. § 41-10-80(A).

In an effort to avoid this barrier, the plaintiffs argue 

that the notice provision in § 41-10-30(A) is incorporated into 

the provision imposing a duty on employers to timely pay their 

employees “all wages due,” § 41-10-40(D), for which there is a 

private cause of action, § 41-10-80(C). Section 41-10-40(D) 

provides that “[e]very employer in the State shall pay all wages 

due at the time and place designated as required by subsection 

(A) of § 41-10-30,” and the plaintiffs take this cross reference

to mean that the “wages due” to an employee are whatever wages 

the employer notified the employee he would be receiving at the 

time of hire. Based on this interpretation, they maintain that 

because Columbia Farms told them “they would be paid by the 

clock at the time of hire and would work nine (9) hour shifts,” 
28

Columbia Farms somehow created a term of employment that it

breached by paying them based on “line time.” They maintain 

that their claim to unpaid wages is therefore not preempted 

because “[n]o resort to any CBA was necessary for the jury to 

determine Employees were not told that they would be paid based 

on ‘line time’ when they were hired.”

Several problems are inherent with this theory. First, as 

a textual matter, the far more natural reading of § 41-10-40(D) 

is that it references § 41-10-30(A) to describe when and where

wages are to be paid, not the amount of wages due to an 

employee. In other words, § 41-10-30(A) requires employers to 

notify their employees of “the time and place of payment,” and §

41-10-40(D) then uses that “time and place” designation to 

establish when and where wages must be paid. See Ross v. Ligand 

Pharm., Inc., 639 S.E.2d 460, 471 (S.C. Ct. App. 2006).

But far more fundamentally, the plaintiffs’ theory 

ultimately undermines the role of the CBA as the exclusive 

contract for the payment of wages. They argued to the jury that 

even though they were hired into positions covered by the CBA, 

they nonetheless also entered into individual employment 

contracts with Columbia Farms when they were hired that were 

independent of the CBA and that entitled them to be paid on a 

“clock time” basis, regardless of what the CBA provided. This 

approach, however, cannot be accepted without doing serious 
29

damage to the system of collective bargaining because, at 

bottom, the plaintiffs seek to displace the CBA that established 

the terms and conditions of their employment and to replace it 

with what they understood to be Columbia Farms’ individual 

agreements that compensable hours would be calculated based 

solely on when they clocked in and out of work. Obviously, this 

theory would inappropriately usurp the CBA’s federally protected 

role. See Caterpillar Inc., 482 U.S. at 396 (noting that 

“[i]ndividual contracts cannot subtract from collective ones”

(quoting J.I. Case Co. v. NLRB, 321 U.S. 332, 339 (1944))

(internal quotation marks omitted)); see also, e.g., Fox v. 

Parker Hannifin Corp., 914 F.2d 795, 801 (6th Cir. 1990) 

(“[E]mployees covered by a CBA cannot rely upon the existence of 

a separate, individual employment contract giving rise to state 

law claims”); Chmiel v. Beverly Wilshire Hotel Co., 873 F.2d 

1283, 1286 (9th Cir. 1989) (“Since Chmiel’s independent contract 

claim concerns a job position governed by the collective 

bargaining agreement, it is completely preempted by section 

301”); Darden v. U.S. Steel Corp., 830 F.2d 1116, 1120 (11th 

Cir. 1987) (per curiam) (holding preempted plaintiffs’ claims 

“that they entered into oral agreements, for unionized 

positions, that clearly sought to limit or condition the 

provisions of the collective bargaining agreement, which 

established the terms and conditions of employment”). Indeed, 
30

the plaintiffs’ approach would undermine one of the fundamental 

goals of § 301 preemption by allowing employees covered by a 

collective bargaining agreement to circumvent their arbitration 

commitments by positing the existence of individual contracts 

that cover the same ground as a collective one but lack an 

arbitration provision. Moreover, the plaintiffs’ theory in this 

case cannot be reconciled with the provision of the CBA in which 

Columbia Farms agreed “not to enter into any other Agreement or 

contract with its employees, individually or collectively, which 

in any way conflicts with the terms and provisions of [the 

CBA].”

In sum, we conclude that any entitlement the plaintiffs 

have in this case to unpaid wages under the S.C. Wages Act must 

stem from the CBA that governed the terms and conditions of 

their employment, including their wages. Since it is undisputed 

that the plaintiffs did not pursue the grievance and arbitration 

procedures provided by the CBA, these claims should have been 

dismissed as preempted by § 301 of the LMRA.

III

With respect to the district court’s decision, following a 

bench trial, that Columbia Farms violated the rights of eight of 

its former employees under S.C. Code Ann. § 41-1-80 by 

terminating their employment in retaliation for their 
31

institution of workers’ compensation proceedings, Columbia Farms 

contends that the district court applied an unprecedented test 

for when an employee “institutes” workers’ compensation 

proceedings. It also contends that the district court erred in 

finding a causal relationship between Columbia Farms’

termination of the plaintiffs’ employment and their 

“institution” of workers’ compensation proceedings.

Section 41-1-80 of the South Carolina Code provides that 

“[n]o employer may discharge or demote any employee because the 

employee has instituted or caused to be instituted, in good 

faith, any proceeding under the South Carolina Workers’ 

Compensation Law.” (Emphasis added).

With respect to Natasha Atkinson, Anna Edens, Shiren 

Johnson, Shirley Baisey, Tamortha Bruster, and Steven Case, none 

actually filed a workers’ compensation claim prior to the 

termination of his or her employment. The district court found, 

however, that they had “instituted” workers’ compensation

proceedings within the meaning of the statute based on their 

“receipt of treatment for their injuries from the nurse’s 

office, combined with their requests to visit the company doctor 

or Taylor’s representation to them that they had to see a 

private doctor, and their submission of documentation to 

Columbia Farms showing that they had sought medical care for 

their injuries.” Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d at 477; see also id.
32

at 478-480. This conclusion, however, applied a test that is

insufficient under South Carolina law to show that workers’ 

compensation proceedings had been “instituted.”

To be sure, the South Carolina Supreme Court has indicated 

that § 41-1-80 does not “require a formal filing of a Workers’

Compensation Claim by the employee,” reasoning that “[t]he 

purpose of this statute cannot be avoided by firing an injured 

employee before he or she files a claim.” Johnson v. J.P. 

Stevens & Co., Inc., 417 S.E.2d 527, 529 (S.C. 1992). Pointing 

to decisions in other jurisdictions that had “held other conduct 

sufficient to have instituted a proceeding including [1] the 

employer’s agreement to pay or payment of medical care or [2] 

the employer’s receipt of written notice from an independent 

health care provider in the form of a bill for medical services 

rendered to an injured employee,” the South Carolina Supreme 

Court held that “these types of conduct will suffice to 

constitute instituting a proceeding under our statute as well.” 

Id. (emphasis added). The South Carolina Supreme Court has, 

however, never recognized any other conduct as sufficient to 

satisfy the statutory requirement.

The district court in this case failed to follow the 

jurisprudence of the South Carolina Supreme Court and did not 

require plaintiffs to show either (1) that Columbia Farms agreed 

to pay for the plaintiffs’ medical care or (2) that Columbia 
33

Farms received a bill for the plaintiffs’ care from an 

independent health care provider. And the circumstances of 

these six employees do not satisfy those requirements. The 

district court relied on the fact that these six employees had 

submitted documentation to Columbia Farms to show that they had 

sought medical care for their injuries, but there was no 

indication, direct or implied, that they were doing so in order 

to seek reimbursement for their medical bills. To the contrary, 

the evidence showed that the plaintiffs provided doctors’ notes 

to Columbia Farms in their efforts to minimize their attendance 

points. We therefore conclude that the district court erred in 

holding that these six employees had “instituted” workers’ 

compensation proceedings within the meaning of S.C. Code Ann. §

41-1-80.

We also agree with Columbia Farms that the district court 

erred in concluding that the termination of these plaintiffs’ 

employment resulted from their institution of workers’ 

compensation proceedings. The record showed that their 

employment was terminated under the established point system, 

and regardless of whether that system was fairly administered, 

the plaintiffs did not establish that it was a mechanism for 

retaliation for their institution of workers’ compensation 

proceedings. To the contrary, the district court found that the 
34

plaintiffs’ employment was terminated by reason of Nurse 

Taylor’s erroneous classification of their injuries.

Again, the statute provides that “[n]o employer may 

discharge or demote any employee because the employee has 

instituted or caused to be instituted, in good faith, any 

proceeding under the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Law.” 

S.C. Code Ann. § 41-1-80 (emphasis added). It specifies

further:

Any employer shall have as an affirmative defense to 

this section the following: wilful or habitual 

tardiness or absence from work; being disorderly or 

intoxicated while at work; destruction of any of the 

employer’s property; failure to meet established 

employer work standards; malingering; embezzlement or 

larceny of the employer’s property; violating specific 

written company policy for which the action is a 

stated remedy of the violation.

Id. (emphasis added). Interpreting these provisions, the South 

Carolina Supreme Court has held that “[t]he appropriate test of 

causation under § 41-1-80 is the ‘determinative factor’ test,” 

which “requires the employee [to] establish that he would not 

have been discharged ‘but for’ the filing of the workers’ 

compensation claim.” Hinton v. Designer Ensembles, Inc., 540 

S.E.2d 94, 97 (S.C. 2000). The South Carolina Supreme Court has 

further held that “[w]hile the employer has the burden of 

proving its affirmative defenses, the employer does not have the 

burden of establishing the affirmative defenses are causally 

related to the discharge,” id., because such a requirement would 
35

“effectively shift[] the burden to [the] employer to disprove

that the discharge was in retaliation for filing the claim,” 

Wallace v. Milliken & Co., 406 S.E.2d 358, 360 (S.C. 1991). 

Instead, “[t]he ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact 

that the employer retaliatorily discharged the employee for 

exercising statutory rights under the Act remains at all times 

with the employee.” Id. (quoting Buckner v. Gen. Motors Corp., 

760 P.2d 803, 807 (Okla. 1988)). The employee may carry the

burden, “either directly by persuading the court that the 

discharge was significantly motivated by retaliation for her 

exercise of statutory rights, or indirectly by showing that the 

employer’s proffered explanation is unworthy of credence.” Id.

(citation omitted). “If the employer articulates a legitimate, 

nonretaliatory reason for the termination, the proximity in time 

between the work-related injury and the termination is not 

sufficient evidence to carry the employee’s burden of proving a 

causal connection.” Hinton, 540 S.E.2d at 97.

The district court did not adhere to these principles in 

resolving the retaliation claims brought by the six plaintiffs 

who reported having sore or injured hands. It erred by failing 

to hold these plaintiffs to their burden of proving that they 

“would not have been discharged ‘but for’ the filing of the 

workers’ compensation claim.” Hinton, 540 S.E.2d at 97. 

Instead, it concluded that they had established the requisite 
36

causal connection by showing that they would not have been fired 

“but for” Nurse Taylor’s determination that their conditions 

were not related to work. See, e.g., Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d 

at 478 (“But for Taylor’s refusal to allow Baisey to visit the 

company doctor, Baisey would not have accumulated excessive 

attendance points”). It could be argued, as the district court 

suggested, that Nurse Taylor may have misclassified these 

employees’ injuries, resulting in their failing to receive the 

benefit of Columbia Farms’ more lenient policies for employees 

with injuries it considered to be work related. But, without 

more, this fails to establish that Columbia Farms discharged 

these six individuals in retaliation for the exercise of their 

statutory rights under South Carolina’s workers’ compensation 

law.

Because the district court (1) applied the wrong test under 

South Carolina law for determining whether the plaintiffs 

“instituted proceedings” under § 41-1-80 and (2) failed to 

demand proof sufficient to satisfy South Carolina’s test for 

causation, we reverse the judgments in favor of Atkinson, Edens, 

Johnson, Baisey, Bruster, and Case.

The retaliation claims brought by Billy Harris and Lisa 

Jamison stand on a different footing. Both of these employees 

fell at work and were treated by the company doctor. The 

district court thus properly concluded that they had 
37

“instituted” workers’ compensation proceedings within the 

meaning of the statute prior to their discharge. See Johnson, 

417 S.E.2d at 529. Indeed, Jamison actually filed a workers’ 

compensation claim prior to the termination of her employment, 

although the district court did not rely on this fact. 

Moreover, even though Columbia Farms proffered a nonretaliatory

reason for why it terminated Harris’ employment -- that he left 

the line without permission -- the district court was entitled 

to accept Harris’s account that he actually had received 

permission to leave the line in order to visit the nurse’s 

station. Similarly, Columbia Farms represented that it was 

terminating Jamison’s employment because she had taken excessive 

breaks. But again, the district court found that that 

explanation lacked credence since the company doctor had advised 

Jamison to take frequent breaks and she was returning from the 

nurse’s station each time she was spotted outside of her work 

area. The district court was also entitled to consider 

persuasive “the fact that a supervisor at Columbia Farms [had] 

indicated that Jamison would likely be terminated as a result of 

her injury.” Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d at 481-82.

Columbia Farms nonetheless challenges the judgments in 

favor of these two plaintiffs, arguing that an extended period 

of time would have elapsed before they would have been able to 

perform their normal job duties, thus justifying their 
38

discharge. There is some force to this position, as the statute 

does specify that an employer “shall have as an affirmative 

defense” an employee’s “failure to meet established employer 

work standards.” S.C. Code § 41-1-80; see also Horn v. Davis 

Elec. Constructors, Inc., 416 S.E.2d 634, 637 (S.C. 1992) 

(holding that § 41-1-80 “does not singularly accord to an 

employee the right to a reasonable period of time for 

rehabilitation to demonstrate the ability to perform his former 

employment”). But in Horn, the court also affirmed the judgment 

entered in favor of an employee, even though the record showed 

that he was totally disabled for almost a year as a result of an 

on-the-job injury to his back and then only released to return 

to work with restrictions that prevented him from performing his 

former job. Id. at 634-35. We conclude that this decision 

controls Columbia Farms’ argument. We also note, in this 

regard, that the district court specifically found that Jamison 

was not entitled to any lost wages on the ground that she had 

failed to mitigate her damages after her discharge, and it 

awarded lost wages to Harris only after finding that he “had 

been on light duty before the company doctor released him to 

return to full duty, and [he] did not indicate that he would not 

have been physically able to return to light duty, pursuant to

any medical restrictions, if Columbia Farms had not terminated 

his employment.” Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d at 481.
39

Finding no error with respect to Harris and Jamison, we 

affirm the district court’s judgments in their favor.

IV

For the reasons given, we reverse the judgments (including 

attorneys’ fees) in favor of the 16 plaintiffs who prevailed 

below on claims under the S.C. Wages Act, concluding that those 

claims should have been dismissed as preempted under § 301 of 

the LMRA; we reverse the judgments on the retaliation claims 

brought by Atkinson, Edens, Johnson, Baisey, Bruster, and Case

for their failure to prove their claims; and we affirm the 

judgments in favor of Harris and Jamison on their retaliation 

claims.

AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART
40

KING, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I respectfully disagree with the panel majority’s decision 

except its affirmance of the judgments in favor of plaintiffs 

Billy Harris and Lisa Jamison on their workers’ compensation 

retaliation claims. Indeed, I would fully affirm the district 

court, which carefully and capably adjudicated all of the 

retaliation and unpaid wages claims asserted herein.

With respect to the unpaid wages claims, the district court 

properly allowed a jury trial on whether defendant Columbia 

Farms violated the South Carolina Payment of Wages Act by, inter 

alia, providing written notice to employees that they would be 

paid based on “clock time,” while compensating them for only 

“line time.” See S.C. Code § 41-10-30(A) (requiring “[e]very 

employer [to] notify each employee in writing at the time of 

hiring of the normal hours and wages agreed upon,” as well as to 

make “[a]ny changes in these terms . . . in writing at least 

seven calendar days before they become effective”); see also

Carolina Alliance for Fair Emp’t v. S.C. Dep’t of Labor, 

Licensing, & Regulation, 523 S.E.2d 795, 803 (S.C. Ct. App. 

1999) (“The statute is a notice statute. It is intended to 

provide the employee with the information requisite to make an

educated decision whether or not to accept employment.”). 

Significantly, the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find 

that — despite Columbia Farms’s practice of paying employees 
41

premised on “line time,” a practice permitted by but not 

elucidated in the collective bargaining agreement (the “CBA”) —

each and every document provided to the plaintiffs indicated 

that their wages would instead be for “clock time.” The court 

thus correctly determined that the plaintiffs presented valid 

state law claims for recovery of unpaid wages. See Evans v. 

Taylor Made Sandwich Co., 522 S.E.2d 350, 352-53 (S.C. Ct. App. 

1999) (invoking section 41-10-30(A) in upholding a jury verdict 

and treble back wages award in favor of employees who 

“interpreted [a posted] document as Taylor Made’s promise to pay 

[them] 0.6133 cents per sandwich produced,” but who actually 

received “wages based on a per package rate, which may include 

one and a half or two sandwiches”), overruled on other grounds 

by Barron v. Labor Finders of S.C., 713 S.E.2d 634, 638 (S.C. 

2011).

The district court was also right to rule that the unpaid 

wages claims were not preempted by § 301 of the Labor Management 

Relations Act (the “LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 185. That is, 

resolution of the claims did not require interpretation of the 

CBA, which, again, was silent on the “line time”-“clock time” 

issue. See Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U.S. 

399, 405-06 (1988) (explaining that § 301 preemption occurs when 

“the resolution of a state-law claim depends upon the meaning of 

a collective-bargaining agreement”). Moreover, § 301 does not 
42

otherwise preempt “nonnegotiable rights conferred on individual 

employees as a matter of state law” — here, the right to written 

notice of their normal hours and wages. See Livadas v. 

Bradshaw, 512 U.S. 107, 123 (1994); see also Lingle, 486 U.S. at 

409 (observing that “§ 301 pre-emption merely ensures that 

federal law will be the basis for interpreting collectivebargaining agreements, and says nothing about the substantive 

rights a State may provide to workers when adjudication of those 

rights does not depend upon the interpretation of such 

agreements”). Simply put, the CBA did not free Columbia Farms 

to disseminate misleading wage-and-hour notices or exempt it 

from the consequences of doing so.

As for the workers’ compensation retaliation claims, the 

district court properly entered judgments for eight plaintiffs —

the two that we affirm today, plus the six that the panel 

majority reverses (those in favor of Natasha Atkinson, Anna 

Edens, Shiren Johnson, Shirley Baisey, Tamortha Bruster, and 

Steven Case). Those latter judgments also merit affirmance 

because the court heeded controlling principles of South 

Carolina law, including the following:

● “‘In order to prove a claim [of workers’ 

compensation discrimination under South Carolina 

Code section] 41-1-80, a plaintiff must establish 

three elements: (1) the institution of workers’ 

compensation proceedings, (2) discharge or 

demotion, and (3) a causal connection between the 

first two elements,’” Atkinson v. House of 
43

Raeford Farms, Inc., 874 F. Supp. 2d 456, 475 

(D.S.C. 2012) (quoting Hinton v. Designer 

Ensembles, Inc., 540 S.E.2d 94, 97 (S.C. 2000));

● “Proving a claim under section 41-1-80 does not 

require a formal filing of a workers’ 

compensation claim,” as “[t]he Supreme Court of 

South Carolina has held that conduct sufficient 

to be considered instituting a proceeding 

includes ‘the employer’s agreement to pay or 

payment of medical care or the employer’s receipt 

of written notice from an independent health care 

provider in the form of a bill for medical 

services rendered to an injured employee,’” id.

(quoting Johnson v. J.P. Stevens & Co., 417 

S.E.2d 527, 529 (S.C. 1992)); and,

● “To establish causation under section 41-1-80, 

the employee must show that he would not have 

been discharged ‘but for’ the institution of the 

workers’ compensation claim” — a burden that the 

employee may satisfy “either by ‘persuading the 

court that the discharge was significantly 

motivated by retaliation for her exercise of 

statutory rights, or indirectly by showing that 

the employer’s proffered explanation is unworthy 

of credence,’” id. at 475-76 (quoting Hinton, 540 

S.E.2d at 97).

The district court sensibly predicted that the Supreme Court of 

South Carolina would add to Johnson’s non-exhaustive list of 

proceeding-instituting conduct “an employee’s seeking or 

receiving of medical treatment from the employer accompanied by 

circumstances which would lead the employer to infer that a 

workers’ compensation claim is likely to be filed.” See

Atkinson, 874 F. Supp. 2d at 475. Concomitantly, the court 

reasonably determined that the six plaintiffs instituted 

proceedings by seeking treatment from the Columbia Farms nurse’s 
44

office, requesting to see the company doctor, and ultimately 

resorting to private care for conditions regularly incurred in 

the workplace and typical of workers’ compensation claims —

those conditions being “sore hands”/carpal tunnel syndrome 

(Atkinson, Edens, Johnson, and Baisey), an injured and infected 

finger (Bruster), and injured hands (Case). As the court 

recognized, notwithstanding the company nurse’s professed 

beliefs “that carpal tunnel syndrome is [not] a work related 

injury” and that Bruster’s and Case’s injuries were sustained 

elsewhere, see id. at 462, 465, 467, the six plaintiffs had all 

expressly attributed their conditions to their labors at 

Columbia Farms.

Finally, the district court’s causation rulings were also 

legally and factually sound. The court concluded that the 

reason articulated by Columbia Farms for discharging Atkinson, 

Edens, and Johnson — that they failed to secure notes from their 

private physicians permitting them to return to work without 

restrictions — was unworthy of credence. In that regard, the 

court pointed to the company nurse’s testimony “that Columbia 

Farms generally made accommodations, such as light duty, for 

employees with workers’ compensation injuries.” See Atkinson, 

874 F. Supp. 2d at 476-77 (explaining that “where an employer 

sets forth the employee’s inability to perform his job duties as 

the employer’s reason for terminating the employee, evidence 
45

that the employer had a policy of accommodating employees with 

workers’ compensation injuries, coupled with the employer’s 

failure to accommodate the plaintiff[,] may support that 

plaintiff’s assertion that the employer’s proffered reason for 

termination was mere pretext”). The court further found that, 

in firing Baisey, Bruster, and Case, Columbia Farms pretextually 

invoked their excessive attendance points — points that they 

would not have accumulated but for the company nurse’s flimsy 

appraisal that they sustained their injuries outside the 

workplace. See, e.g., id. at 478 (“Although Baisey’s employment 

at Columbia Farms included repetitive use of her hands, [the 

company nurse] independently determined that Baisey’s injury was 

not work related and refused to allow her to visit the company 

doctor for further assessment. As a result, Baisey received 

attendance points for the absences associated with her injury, 

and was terminated from employment.”).

Simply put, because I agree with its cogent analysis, I 

would affirm the district court across-the-board.