Court Opinion

ID: 9581065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:11:25.427845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:41.158771
License: Public Domain

Jordan, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s holding that the language of this handbook adequately puts its employees on notice that they should consult a "master agreement.”
Who wrote this handbook? Hercules did. "If the construction is doúbtful, that which goes most strongly against the party executing the instrument, or undertaking the obligation, is generally to be preferred.” Code § 20-704 (5).
The majority focuses its attention on one narrow section of the handbook, which is 39 pages in length, in which it is apparently explained to the employee as a matter of law that an overall master plan actually controls, while what he is told in the handbook which is furnished to him upon employment is of no consequence at all.
On page one, the handbook states: "This booklet has been prepared to present this information to you in a form that will be readily available for reference. However, *467feel free to ask your Foreman or Supervisor for information about you and your job at anytime.” (Emphasis supplied.) Thirty-four pages later the notice appears that 'Tull details” exist elsewhere, the language cited by the majority. Four pages removed is the following notice: "Voluntary Compensation Plant:] Hercules pays to an employee absent from work because of an injury sustained in the course of employment, the difference between his normal wages, and the amount of compensation provided by the Georgia Workmen’s [sic] Compensation Law. This Plan becomes effective as soon as a person accepts employment with the Company. The entire cost of this Plan is paid by the Company.
"Payments under this Plan will begin immediately to employees who have suffered a tabulable industrial injury. Payments to employees who have suffered a non-tabulable industrial injury will begin after a two-day waiting period.
"Employees receiving payments under this Plan must cooperate fully with the Company in following the advice and directions of the Company Physician.”
The "master agreement” provides, however, that "[w]age roll employees who, because of injury or accident arising out of and in the course of their employment, become disabled and unable to work, shall be paid the difference between full wages as defined in the Company’s Disability Wage Plan and the amount of temporary total disability compensation provided for by the applicable Workmen’s Compensation Law [sic]; if any, and compensation to commence with the third* day of disability and to continue during the period of such disability, but not in excess of thirteen (13) weeks for any one injury or accident... *However, plant managers when authorized by their respective General Managers may, at their discretion, waive the two-day waiting period in those cases where the injury is tabulable [emphasis present in original] insofar as lost-time accident records are concerned.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Thus, it appears that the only "detail” missing from the handbook description is the existence of the thirteen week limit, with the exception that the discretionary two-day waiting period for a tabulable injury contained in *468the "master agreement” is totally in contravention of the "immediately” language of the handbook.
Furthermore, on page 37 of the handbook under the description of the pension plan, the handbook says that a "booklet describing the entire Pension Plan is available upon request in the Personnel Office...” and in describing the savings plan, the handbook says that "when you approach eligibility, the Office Manager will explain this Plan to you in detail.” Hercules certainly knew how to be specific when it wanted to be.
Therefore, the only notice that an employee of Hercules’ Brunswick Plant could have of a material limitation on his or her right to recover on the voluntary compensation plan is the language cited by the majority that the employee "may” seek full details of a plan fully spelled out except for the omission of its most important term — the four words "for only thirteen weeks.”
The words "full details” are not adequate notice to the employee that another document actually controls the terms of employment set out in the handbook. As was said in Gould v. Continental Coffee Co., 304 FSupp. 1,2, a case cited by the majority, an employee was not on notice of the existence of a controlling plan when "[p]laintiff was not furnished with a copy of the plan, nor was he given notice as to when and where a copy could be examined.” In this case, Adams was not even notified that such a plan existed, much less told when and where he could examine it.
As noted above, Hercules drafted this handbook. It is its fault alone that the notice is unclear. Handbooks of this nature can serve a useful purpose so long as the notice contained in the handbook is concrete, forceful and specific to the effect that the employee must consult the master plan, and that copies of the same are available at a certain time and at a certain place for inspection.
I would not allow a company to mislead an employee in a summarization of their employment agreement about the details of something so vital to an employee — compensation when the employee cannot work — without being clear as a matter of law that the empty but attractive words read by the employee stand for absolutely nothing.
*469I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Nichols and Justice Hill join in this dissent.