Case Name: Pamela GRIGGS, Appellant, v. TRIPLE S INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION, Appellee
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 2006-06-29
Citations: 197 S.W.3d 408
Docket Number: No. 09-05-365 CV
Parties: Pamela GRIGGS, Appellant, v. TRIPLE S INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION, Appellee.
Judges: Before McKEITHEN, C.J., GAULTNEY and KREGER, JJ.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Third Series
Volume: 197
Pages: 408–416

Head Matter:
Pamela GRIGGS, Appellant, v. TRIPLE S INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION, Appellee.
No. 09-05-365 CV.
Court of Appeals of Texas, Beaumont.
Submitted April 13, 2006.
Decided June 29, 2006.
John S. Morgan, Lindsay & Morgan, P.L.L.C., Beaumont, for appellant.
M. Carter Crow, David Jordan, Hannah Sibiski, Shafeeqa Watkins, Fulbright & Ja-worski L.L.P., Houston, for appellee.
Before McKEITHEN, C.J., GAULTNEY and KREGER, JJ.

Opinion:
OPINION
STEVE McKEITHEN, Chief Justice.
Pamela Griggs appeals the summary judgment granted in favor of her former employer in a workers' compensation retaliation case. Griggs contends Triple S Industrial Corporation ("Triple S") terminated her employment because she appeared at a benefit review conference in which her spouse, also an employee of Triple S, obtained workers' compensation benefits. Because Griggs neither testified nor was about to testify in a proceeding under the workers' compensation statutes, she did not engage in a protected activity under the anti-retaliation statute. Accordingly, we affirm the summary judgment.
Griggs's husband David gave notice of an on-the-job injury on September 20, 2001, shortly after his employment with Triple S terminated. Appellant was not identified as a witness on the notice. According to an affidavit supplied by Robert Royal, Triple S's Safety Director, the insurance carrier initially denied the claim and David Griggs requested a benefit review conference. At the benefit review conference conducted on January 11, 2002, David Griggs and the insurance carrier agreed: (1) David Griggs sustained a com-pensable mental trauma injury on January 26, 2000; (2) a particular doctor was not the carrier's choice but the carrier is liable for reasonable and necessary charges incurred; and (3) disability resulted from the injury, there was no disability prior to October 23, 2001, and disability existed from that date through the date of the conference. In her deposition, Griggs describes her participation in the benefit review conference, as follows:
Q. Now, you testified earlier that you provided some information at a hearing related to your husband; is that correct? Do you recall that testimony?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Tell me about that event.
A. I don't recall what I said, but the ombudsman was asking questions about insurance regarding Triple S paying for insurance. And Mr. Royal was giving his — what he knew about the insurance, and then I followed by what I knew about it. And that was basically all I said.
Q. With what regard, what kind of insurance?
A. Health medical insurance. And like I said, I don't remember what was said....
Q. Do you recall what the content of the discussion was, what it was about with regards to insurance?
A. No, I don't.
Q. Did you have a disagreement with Mr. Royal's characterization of the insurance?
A. Yes.
Q. What was the disagreement about?
A. I cannot remember.
Q. So, essentially, you recall talking at the hearing, but you have no idea what you said?
A. Right. I remember it was about the health — the insurance. I think it was about how much they pay, but I can't remember what was said or how much it was.
Q. Disagreement with how much they paid with regards to what?
A. What the difference was, what the employee paid, what Triple S paid.
Q. And why was the ombudsman asking questions; do you know? About this issue; do you know?
A. No, I don't at all. It had to do with the Workers' Comp hearing.
Q. And you said, you said you had a disagreement with Mr. Royal about this insurance?
A. It wasn't, I mean, no, he was just giving his — I mean, it wasn't a major disagreement. It wasn't an argument. He was just saying one thing, and I was saying another thing.
Q. Did you think Mr. Royal was wrong?
A. Not necessarily that I thought he was wrong but that I thought he might not, or maybe I thought I knew more than he did.
Q. Why would you think you knew more than Mr. Royal?
A. Conversations that I had had with the secretary that — we had spoke [sic] a lot about the insurance there.
Q. With whose secretary?
A. The secretary at the main office.
Q. Did you have a disagreement with her, too, about the insurance?
A. Huh-uh, no.
Q. Do you remember what you disagreed about with regards to what Mr. Royal was saying?
A. I do not remember.
Q. Well, isn't that what the basis of your lawsuit is?
A. What?
Q. Isn't that what your lawsuit's all about?
A. Yeah, that they, I figured that they let me go because of this, because I supported my husband at this Workers' Comp meeting.
Q. Well, how is what you said, how do you — you said you don't even remember what you said, how is it supporting your husband?
A. Because I was there supporting him.
Q. Oh, so you believe just being there supporting him is the reason why?
A. Yes, yes.
Q. So you don't think that Triple S terminated you for anything you said, you think it was just for being there, sitting beside your husband as a present employee of Triple S?
A. Yes.
Q. And what do you recall being said during that hearing?
A. I don't recall. There was a lot of things being said. I was never personally, myself, questioned.
Q. The Texas [Workers' Compensation] Commission representative didn't ask you any questions?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. The ombudsperson didn't ask you any questions?
A. Not to my knowledge.
According to David Griggs, everyone came to an agreement at the meeting and he was paid workers' compensation benefits. No adversarial workers' compensation proceedings were conducted. David Griggs did sue Exxon in connection with the accident, and Griggs testified that two friends she worked with suggested she should "back out of' the Exxon suit because she would "probably get fired over it."
An employee cannot be discharged because the employee has "testified or is about to testify in a proceeding" under the Workers' Compensation Code. Tex. Lab. Code Ann. § 451.001 (Vernon 2006). Griggs contends she is protected from retaliation under Section 451.001 because she "testified" or was "about to testify" at the benefit review conference. According to Griggs, the word "testify" has not acquired a technical or particular meaning, and must therefore be read in context and construed according to common usage. See Tex. Gov't Code Ann. § 311.011 (Vernon 2005). To "testify," she argues, means to give information based upon personal knowledge and conviction, and is not limited to solemn declarations made under oath.
A benefit review conference is not a hearing of record and the benefit review officer is prohibited from taking testimony. Tex. Lab.Code Ann. § 410.026 (Vernon 2006). Therefore, Griggs's participation in the hearing could not have included providing testimony. Griggs argues our construction of "instituted" in subsection 3 of Labor Code § 451.001 in Duhon v. Bone & Joint Physical Therapy Clinics, 947 S.W.2d 316, 318 (Tex.App.-Beauraont 1997, no writ), supports her broad reading of "testified" in subsection 4 of the same statute. In Duhon, the worker filed her compensation claim after her discharge from employment. Id. We held the worker's notice to her employer of an on-the-job-injury sufficiently instituted a workers' compensation proceeding. Id. We certainly gave "instituted" a very broad application in Duhon, but in that case we were following precedent established by several cases. See id.; see also Borden, Inc. v. Guerra, 860 S.W.2d 515, 521 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1993, writ dism'd by agr.); Palmer v. Miller Brewing Co., 852 S.W.2d 57, 60-61 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1993, writ denied); Worsham Steel Co. v. Arias, 831 S.W.2d 81, 84 (Tex.App.-El Paso 1992, no writ); Mid-South Bottling Co. v. Cigainero, 799 S.W.2d 385, 389 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 1990, writ denied). Griggs cites us to no case where any other court held that a person appearing at a benefit review conference "testifies" for purposes of Section 451.001(4). Griggs's situation might be more closely analogous to Duhon if she had been terminated after the benefit review conference but before a contested case hearing was actually conducted. In such a situation, she could rationally argue that the employer's decision to terminate her employment was a matter of timing. In Griggs's case, however, the workers' compensation case fully settled through mediation before her . employer terminated her employment. She cannot rationally argue that her employer laid her off in anticipation of her future testimony, when there would never be an adversarial hearing in which she could testify.
Texas Mexican Railway Co. v. Bouchet, 963 S.W.2d 52, 55 (Tex.1998), noted that "[t]he Legislature enacted [the anti-retaliation statute] in 1971 to protect 'persons who file a claim or hire an attorney or aid in filing a claim or testify at hearings concerning a claim under the Texas Workmen's Compensation Act-'" riggs contends Bouchet supports her position that "hyper technical construal of its provisions would work to defeat these rights." The case on which she relies must be placed into its proper context: in Bouchet, the Supreme Court held that the anti-retaliation statute applied only to subscribers under the workers' compensation statute, not to non-subscribers. See id. at 57. So Bouchet stands for the proposition that we must apply the statute as it is written. See id. at 56 ("When considering the entire legislative history of [the anti-retaliation statute], the Legislature's intent is unmistakable: [the anti-retaliation statute] is intended to apply only to employees and employers who act under the Texas Workers' Compensation Act."). Labor Code § 451.001(4) protects persons who testify in any proceeding under the workers' compensation statute. A benefit review conference is a proceeding under the statute, but participants in the conference do not testify.
Other statutes, such as the whistle-blower statute, protect a broad class of persons who participate in proceedings under the Labor Code. See Tex. Lab.Code Ann. § 21.055(4) (Vernon 2006) ("An employer . commits an unlawful employment practice if the employer ., retaliates or discriminates against a person who, under this chapter: . (4) testifies, assists, or participates in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing."). The legislature could have protected persons who assist or participate in any way in a proceeding under the workers' compensation statute, but chose to protect only those persons who "testified." To apply the anti-retaliation statute to an employee who, like Griggs, has not actually engaged in activity declared by the legislature to be protected, would require this Court to "encroach on the at-will employment doctrine without express legislative action." Salay v. Baylor Univ., 115 S.W.3d 625, 627 (Tex.App.-Waco 2003, pet. denied) (construing Labor Code section 21.055(4)). Griggs claims limiting Labor .Code § 451.001(4) to actual testimony will encourage employers to discriminate against witnesses who appear at a benefit review conference. As an intermediate appellate court, we cannot "reject the most compelling interpretation of the statutory language for a 'fair' interpretation, even if we preferred as a matter of policy the result yielded by the broader interpretation." King v. Marriott Int'l, Inc., 337 F.3d 421, 428 (4th Cir.2003) (construing section 510 of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act).
We hold that Pamela Griggs did not engage in a protected activity under the anti-retaliation statute. Therefore, the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of Triple S Industrial Corporation. Because the appellant did not engage in activity protected by Labor Code Section 451.001, she cannot recover under the anti-retaliation statute. Therefore, we do not reach the issue of whether she demonstrated a causal connection between her activity and her termination by the appellee. The judgment is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.