Court Opinion

ID: 9761748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:53:12.322854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:26.013909
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, Justice.
The employee, Frederick Lindsay, seeks review of a decision of the Appellate Division of the Workers’ Compensation Commission which reversed a Commission decree awarding him net wages lost because the employer, Great Northern Paper Company, discriminated against him for asserting a claim under the Workers’ Compensation Act. We determine that the Commission correctly decided this case, and vacate the decision of the Appellate Division.
On November 10, 1982, Lindsay injured his back in the course of his employment at Great Northern Paper Company in East Millinoeket. Owing to his injury, he was unable to work for two months during which he received workers’ compensation. When he finally reported to work on January 11, 1983, he was promptly suspended without pay for fourteen days in accordance with Great Northern’s “no fault” absenteeism policy.
Great Northern observes a policy of progressive discipline for absenteeism. An employee is permitted four unexcused absences 1 in any given four-month period. If there are five unexcused absences during that four-month period the employee receives an oral warning. If there are five unexcused absences during a subsequent four-month period, the employee receives a written warning. If there are five more unexcused absences during the next four-month period, the employee is suspended without pay for two weeks. When Lindsay injured his back, he had already used up his allotment of unexcused absences. The absence caused by his work-related injury constituted the final unexcused absence necessary to trigger disciplinary suspension without pay.
Lindsay filed a petition asserting that in suspending him without pay because of his absence owing to a work-related injury Great Northern violated 39 M.R.S.A. § 111 (1978) which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees who assert claims under the Workers’ Compensation *153Act. After two hearings, the hearing commissioner found that Great Northern’s “suspension was rooted substantially and significantly in [Lindsay’s] exercising of his rights under the Worker’s Compensation Act” and awarded net wages lost. On Great Northern’s appeal the Appellate Division reversed. We granted Lindsay’s petition for appellate review.
In 1983 section 1112 of Title 39 provided as follows:
No employee shall be discriminated against by any employer in any way for testifying or asserting any claim under this Act. Any employer who so discriminates against any employee shall be liable to such employee on petition before the commission and hearing before the commission, for all net wages lost suffered by such employee by reason of such discrimination.
With the Act’s intended beneficial results and general humanitarian purpose in mind, we have construed the word “claim” as it is used in section 111 in its broad sense as “right.” Delano v. City of South Portland, 405 A.2d 222, 225-27 (Me.1979). Therefore the phrase “asserting any claim under this Act” refers to any right conferred by the Workers’ Compensation Act on the employee, and not merely to the voicing of a demand for benefits by petition or otherwise. Id. at 227. Lindsay’s assertion of a right not to work while physically incapacitated as a result of a work-related injury constituted a “claim” under the Workers’ Compensation Act.
Lindsay contends on appeal that Great Northern’s “no .fault” absenteeism policy, although facially neutral, when applied to instances where the absenteeism is caused by work-related injury operates in a discriminatory manner to subvert the purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act. We agree with Lindsay that the absenteeism policy unlawfully discriminates against him because it labels his rightful absence because of a work-related injury as an unexcused absence.
The Workers’ Compensation Act is premised on the recognition that accidents are inevitable incidents of modem industry and that the burden should not be borne by the employee. Boyce’s Case, 146 Me. 335, 340, 81 A.2d 670, 672-73 (1951). The Act relieves the victims of industrial accidents of the adverse consequences of personal injury and resulting unemployment by shifting the burden from the individual and ultimately to society at large. Scott’s Case, 117 Me. 436, 444, 104 A. 794, 797 (1918). The Act in effect superimposes on the underlying employment contract a vested right to receive compensation and a fixed obligation to pay it upon the happening of an industrial accident. Berry v. M.F. Donovan & Sons, 120 Me. 457, 459, 115 A. 250, 251 (1921); Gauthier’s Case, 120 Me. 73, 76, 113 A. 28, 30 (1921). That an employee who is injured in the course of his employment has a right not only to compensation but also to time off necessary to complete recovery is implicit in the Act. Cf. Delano, 405 A.2d at 227 (right of employee to refuse employment hazardous to his work-related injury is implicit in the Act).
The effect of Great Northern’s “no fault” absenteeism policy in this case was to penalize an employee, like Lindsay, who became subject to a fourteen-day suspension without pay because of work-related injury. As a result, Great Northern in essence deprived Lindsay of compensation to which he is entitled under the Act. To avoid this result, Lindsay’s only recourse would have been to work despite his injury, an alternative clearly at odds with the beneficent purposes of the Act. Furthermore, although Lindsay’s acceptance of employment at Great Northern implied acceptance of the absenteeism policy as a term of employment, see Rowell v. Jones & Vining, Inc., 524 A.2d 1208, 1211 (Me.1987), it cannot be construed as a waiver of his rights to compensation under the Act. See 39 M.R.S.A. § 67 (Supp.1986).
The correct principle of law to be applied by the hearing commissioner in reaching his conclusion was to determine whether as *154a fact Lindsay’s suspension “was rooted substantially or significantly in the employee’s exercise of his rights under the Workers’ Compensation Act.” Delano, 405 A.2d at 229. The hearing commissioner explicitly so found and we cannot say on this record that that finding was clearly erroneous. See Dube v. Paradis Pulp and Logging Co., Inc., 489 A.2d 10, 11 (Me.1985).
The entry is:
The decision of the Appellate Division is vacated.
Remanded to the Appellate Division with directions to enter a judgment affirming the Commission.
It is further ordered that the employer pay to the employee an allowance for counsel fees in the amount of $550 together with his reasonable out-of-pocket expenses for this appeal.
NICHOLS, ROBERTS, WATHEN and GLASSMAN, JJ., concur.

. Absences are construed as "occurrences” rather than separate days of failure to report for scheduled work each counting as a distinct absence. In other words, an employee who fails to report for two or more consecutive days has only one absence.

. P.L. 1971, ch. 190, later amended by P.L. 1985, ch. 118 (effective September, 1985).