Opinion ID: 1796142
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Scope of the Remedy

Text: This Court has repeatedly embraced the rule that an employee at will may be discharged for any reason, including a wrong reason, or for no reason. For a recent example of our reiteration of this long-standing rule, see Coca Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated v. Hollander, [Ms. 1020520, October 31, 2003] ___ So.2d ___ (Ala.2003), and the cases cited therein. Section 25-5-11.1 provides, in pertinent part: No employee shall be terminated by an employer solely because the employee has instituted or maintained any action against the employer to recover workers' compensation benefits under this chapter .... (Emphasis added.) This statutory provision prohibiting retaliatory discharge was enacted in response to this Court's 5-4 decision in Meeks v. Opp Cotton Mills, Inc., 459 So.2d 814 (Ala.1984), where the Court acknowledged the employment at-will doctrine and refused to recognize an exception in a case in which an employee maintained that his discharge from employment was the result of his having filed a workers' compensation claim. In Meeks, this Court referred to Bender Ship Repair, Inc. v. Stevens, 379 So.2d 594 (Ala.1980), in which the Court had refused to recognize an exception to the at-will doctrine for an employee who alleged that he had been fired because he had missed work to serve on a grand jury. After Bender Ship Repair was released, as the opinion in Meeks points out, the Legislature enacted § 12-16-8.1, Ala.Code 1975, creating a remedy for an employee who was discharged for serving on a jury. Section 12-16-8.1(a) provides as follows: No employer in this state may discharge any employee solely because he serves on any jury empanelled under any state or federal statute; provided, however, that the employee reports for work on his next regularly scheduled hour after being dismissed from any jury. (Emphasis added.) The Legislature accepted this not-so-subtle hint in Meeks as to the proper course of action and enacted § 25-5-11.1. Section 25-5-11.1 quite plainly creates a remedy where an employee has been discharged solely for instituting or maintaining an action for workers' compensation benefits under this chapter. [1] Wright urges us to apply the oft-cited rule of construction requiring that we construe workers' compensation statutes liberally in favor of the employee in order to achieve the beneficent purposes of the workers' compensation laws so as to, in effect, read the phrase under this chapter out of the statute. This we cannot do. We recently reiterated in Ex parte Weaver, 871 So.2d 820, 824 (Ala.2003), the settled principle that `[c]ourts must liberally construe the workers' compensation law to effectuate its beneficent purposes, although such a construction must be one that the language of the statute fairly and reasonably supports.' (Quoting Ex parte Dunlop Tire Corp., 706 So.2d 729, 733 (Ala.1997), quoting in turn Ex parte Beaver Valley Corp., 477 So.2d 408, 411 (Ala.1985).) In Hollander, supra, we referred to § 25-5-11.1 as a narrow exception to the general rule that an employment contract is terminable at will by either party, forbidding employers from terminating an at-will employee solely because that employee sought workers' compensation benefits. ___ So.2d at ___. Wright refers us to McClain v. Birmingham Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 578 So.2d 1299 (Ala.1991), in which this Court held that the word action, as used in § 25-5-11.1, included a claim as well as a judicial proceeding. Wright urges this example of a construction consistent with the beneficent purposes of the Workers' Compensation Act as authority for disregarding the phrase under this chapter. Suffice it to say that it is quite a leap from liberally construing one word in § 25-5-11.1 to completely writing three words out of the statute. This Court simply cannot ignore words in a statute except where it is ` certain that the legislature could not possibly have intended the words to be in the statute, and that the rejection of them serves merely as a correction of careless language.' Ex parte Jackson, 625 So.2d 425, 428 (Ala.1992). We are not here presented with such a case. The Legislature is quite capable of drafting an exception to the at-will rule that is sufficiently broad to provide a cause of action for retaliatory discharge for conduct on the part of an employer arising from the employee's involvement with the workers' compensation laws of other states. See, e.g., the aforementioned statute prohibiting retaliatory discharge based upon an employee's being required to serve on a jury empanelled under any state or federal statute.  See § 12-16-8.1(a), quoted in full ante (emphasis added). The case for modifying § 25-5-11.1 to embrace claims arising from an employee's discharge in Alabama as a result of the employee's asserting rights conferred by the workers' compensation laws of another state should be made in the Legislature. [2]