Opinion ID: 1845007
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence to Present Jury Issue as to Reason for Discharge.

Text: We next discuss an alternative argument advanced by defendant in an effort to save the judgment of the district court. This argument is tied to the trial court's observation, in ruling on the motion for directed verdict, that it doubted there was sufficient evidence to sustain plaintiff's claim that her discharge was due to the workers' compensation claim. Although the trier of fact may ultimately agree with the district court's observation, we are convinced that on the record presented this issue was for the jury. Plaintiff's testimony concerning the temporal proximity of the discharge to the demand of defendant's manager that she release her pending workers' compensation claim is sufficient, we believe, to raise a jury question as to whether she was discharged for pursuing the claim. Although defendant now suggests that there were other reasons for plaintiff's discharge, it was never required to produce any evidence on this issue as a result of the directed verdict at the close of plaintiff's evidence. It now asks us to find another reason from a document in evidence which defendant filed with the Iowa Department of Job Service. This document indicates that defendant was concerned about plaintiff's job requirements aggravating her carpal tunnel syndrome condition. The trier of fact would not have been required to accept this explanation as a verity even if a representative of the defendant had so testified at trial. See, e.g., Gordon v. Pfab, 246 N.W.2d 283, 287 (Iowa 1976). Because of the directed verdict, however, there was no such testimony by defendant on this point. The proceedings before the Iowa Department of Job Service may be viewed in an entirely different light than that presented by defendant. The context in which defendant was stating a reason for plaintiff's discharge before that agency involved an effort to disqualify plaintiff from unemployment benefits on the grounds of misconduct. Defendant initially implied before the agency that plaintiff had filed a groundless and false workers' compensation claim and that this was the reason for her discharge. That circumstance can be viewed as reinforcing plaintiff's contention that the filing of the workers' compensation claim was the reason her employment was terminated. Defendant argues that its conduct must be measured by the information available to it at the time of plaintiff's discharge. It suggests that the information which caused it and its insurance carrier to stipulate that plaintiff's injury was in fact work related was not available to it when the discharge occurred. We find this argument to be untenable for two reasons. First, it appears that defendant's workers' compensation insurance carrier believed that there was enough evidence that plaintiff's injury was work-related to have begun the payment of weekly benefits prior to the time that she was discharged. Second, we believe that, if it is contrary to public policy to discharge an employee for filing a workers' compensation claim, it is also against public policy to discharge an employee solely on the employer's subjective judgment as to the bona fides of a pending claim prior to its resolution by the industrial commissioner. Indeed, there may be situations where a workers' compensation claim is ultimately unsuccessful and yet a discharge based on the filing of the claim would violate public policy. For the reasons we have stated, the district court erred in directing a verdict for the defendant. As the record stood at the close of plaintiff's evidence, a jury question was presented on plaintiff's tortious interference claim.