Opinion ID: 2543127
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Clear and Substantial Public Policy Underlying Workers' Compensation Outweighs La-Z-Boy's Interests

Text: ¶ 17 Having concluded that workers' compensation represents a clear and substantial public policy, we now must weigh that policy against La-Z-Boy's interests. In this case, La-Z-Boy has invoked the policy that underlies at-will employment  that employers ought to be able to manage their workforces and regulate their workplace environments to promote productivity, security, and similar lawful business objectives. However, an employer's ability to regulate its workforce primarily inures to the benefit of the employer and the employee, not to the public in general. Moreover, while there may be public policies underlying an employer's general ability to manage its employees free from judicial interference, we can think of no public policy that would be furthered by permitting employers to discharge employees who seek to exercise their workers' compensation rights. ¶ 18 In contrast to La-Z-Boy's stated interests, La-Z-Boy's employees raise a public policy that provides a benefit outside of the private employer-employee relationship. By design, workers' compensation benefits the public as a whole. See supra ¶ 14. It follows, then, that limiting an employer's ability to interfere with workers' compensation serves the greater good. We therefore conclude that in order to give effect to the legislature's pronouncement that workers' compensation is in the public's interest, an employer's right to workplace autonomy must yield. [2] Accordingly, an employer owes its employees a duty not to exploit the employment relationship by forcing employees to choose between their jobs and compensation under the Act. See Hansen, 2004 UT 62, ¶ 10, 96 P.3d 950. ¶ 19 We therefore hold that an employee's exercise of workers' compensation rights constitutes the exercise of a legal right that embodies a clear and substantial public policy. An employer who terminates an employee in retaliation for the employee's exercise of that right has violated a clear and substantial public policy and may be sued for wrongful discharge by the discharged employee.