Opinion ID: 170920
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Injury-Free Incentive

Text: Mr. Hysten also introduced evidence that Burlington Northern, however indirectly, created a financial incentive for its supervisors, including Mr. Johnson, to deter on-duty injury claims. Mr. Johnson stated that his performance evaluation, the quality of which dictated his annual salary, was based in part on the number of on-duty injuries per man-hours worked. Thus, the lower the number of on-duty injuries, the better Mr. Johnson's performance evaluation would be. With a better performance evaluation there would be at least a significant possibility that Mr. Johnson would see more pay. This calculus provides additional evidence of retaliatory intent; Burlington Northern arguably created an incentive for Mr. Johnson to disfavor on-duty injury claims. [7] Cf. Trujillo v. PacifiCorp, 524 F.3d 1149, 1157 (10th Cir.2007) (reviewing Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) associational discrimination claim, and concluding that a jury could reasonably infer, from evidence that the employer was concern[ed] about rising healthcare costs, took numerous efforts to cut those costs, was actively engaged in monitoring of general healthcare costs, and specifically monitored healthcare costs associated with the child, that the employer terminated a terminally-ill child's parents because they were too expensive). To be sure, the performance-evaluation financial incentive is less suggestive of employer hostility toward the reporting of on-duty injuries than the other employer programs and practices we previously have found relevant to the issue of retaliatory intent under Kansas law. See Bausman, 252 F.3d at 1123 (job safety incentive program that potentially embarrassed injured employees by placing red stripe bearing the statement I had an accident on their hard hats for one year); Sanjuan I, 160 F.3d at 1296, 1297-98 (noting evidence of employer practice of harassing and mistreating injured employees, of an accident-free incentive program in which groups of employees received prizes if no injuries were reported, and of the employer's specific annual goal that is an average of cost of workers' compensation for all employees). [8] It also seems logical for an employer to assess a supervisor's performance, in part, based upon the safety record of his crew. However, we cannot ignore the possible implications of such a system in evaluating the sufficiency of Mr. Hysten's evidence of retaliatory intent. Cf. Trujillo, 524 F.3d at 1157 (considering as relevant to pretext in the ADA context an employer's general concerns about rising healthcare costs and numerous efforts to cut those costs). An employer's consideration of workplace injuries in evaluating its supervisors' performance  and, hence, salaries  carries the potential for supervisors to pressure employees not to report work-place injuries and to take retaliatory action against those who do.