Court Opinion

ID: 9539987
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:12:04.142779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:30.729914
License: Public Domain

WYNN, Judge,
dissenting.
The issue on appeal is whether the Industrial Commission was correct in finding and concluding that Defendants failed to demonstrate that Plaintiff’s loss of, or diminution in, wages was attributable to his own wrongful act, resulting in the loss of his employment, and not due to his work-related disability. Seagraves v. Austin Co. of Greensboro, 123 N.C. App. 228, 234, 472 S.E.2d 397, 401 (1996). Contrary to the majority opinion, I would reach the threshold issue of whether the Industrial Commission appropriately applied Seagraves, concluding that Plaintiff was wrongfully terminated and is entitled to *95receive temporary total disability compensation. Finding that the Commission’s application of the Seagraves analysis was proper, I would affirm the Commission’s decision.
In Seagraves, this Court established a test for determining whether an injured employee’s right to continuing workers’ compensation benefits, after being terminated for misconduct, is appropriate. Id. Thereafter, our Supreme Court adopted the Seagraves analysis, stating:
[U]nder the Seagraves’ test, to bar payment of benefits, an employer must demonstrate initially that: (1) the employee was terminated for misconduct; (2) the same misconduct would have resulted in the termination of a nondisabled employee; and (3) the termination was unrelated to the employee’s compensable injury.
McRae v. Toastmaster, Inc., 358 N.C. 488, 493, 597 S.E.2d 695, 699 (2004) (citation omitted).
The majority appears to intertwine two separate analyses: (1) Did the Commission properly apply Seagraves? (2) If not, is the conclusion that Plaintiff is entitled to receive temporary total disability compensation justified by the Commission’s findings of fact? The majority concludes that “the Commission failed to make the necessary findings or conclusions to explain why it applied Seagraves to this case.” However, after careful review of the record, I conclude that the findings made by the Commission support its application of Seagraves.
On review of the case law, there are a number of workers’ compensation cases in which our courts have applied the Seagraves analysis without making a specific finding that plaintiff-employee was on light or rehabilitative duty prior to his termination. In Flores v. Stacy Penny Masonry Co., 134 N.C. App. 452, 518 S.E.2d 200 (1999), the Court upheld the Industrial Commission’s decision, which applied the Seagraves inquiry and found that plaintiff was not barred from receiving disability benefits after being terminated. In Flores, the plaintiff sustained a compensable injury on 9 April 1992, returned to work on 9 June 1992 without modification, and periodically missed work at the direction of his physician until 16 April 1993, when he was terminated. The Court held, “pursuant to our decision in Seagraves, 123 N.C. App. 228, 472 S.E.2d 397, the Commission’s findings supported its conclusion that plaintiff was not barred from *96receiving disability benefits after 16 April 1993.” Flores, 134 N.C. App. at 459, 518 S.E.2d at 205. See also Workman v. Rutherford Elec. Membership Corp., 170 N.C. App. 481, 613 S.E.2d 243 (2005) (applying Seagraves without requiring a finding of light duty or rehabilitative employment where an employee was fired for periodically missing work due to accident-related symptoms).
Further, our Supreme Court has explained the underlying purpose of the Seagraves analysis, stating:
On the one hand, the test serves to protect injured employees from unscrupulous employers who might fire them in order to avoid paying them their due benefits. On the other hand, according to the lower court, the test simultaneously serves employers as a shield against injured employees who engage in unacceptable conduct while employed in rehabilitative settings.
McRae, 358 N.C. at 494, 597 S.E.2d at 699. The Court’s opinion in McRae illustrates the intention behind the Seagraves analysis: to adopt an inquiry that carefully balances the interest of protecting injured employees who return to work in particularly vulnerable positions while also guarding against potential defendant-employer abuse. Arguably, given this Court’s decision in Flores and the rationale articulated in McRae, the determinative issue is whether the employee, who is urging the application of Seagraves, was in the type of vulnerable position the analysis was originally adopted to protect.
Here, while the Commission concluded that Plaintiff’s “job was not modified in any way and he did not work under any restrictions,” it also concluded that, under Seagraves, Defendants “failed to show that plaintiff was terminated for misconduct[,] ... that the same misconduct would have resulted in the termination of a non-disabled employee, and that the termination was unrelated to her compensable injury.” Drawing from the majority opinion, there is competent evidence in the record to support the finding that the Plaintiff was in a position similar to, if not the same as, rehabilitative or light-duty employment prior to his termination. As the majority states, Plaintiff’s position required a significant amount of “standing, squatting, kneeling, pushing, pulling and lifting up to 100 pounds.” Yet, when Plaintiff returned to work, he was still being treated for his injury. Further, Dr. Martin, his treating physician, testified that the “plan was to return him to work, see him back two to three months later to evaluate his knee, and consider placing him at maximum medical improvement” at a later date.
*97Given the Plaintiffs vulnerable status at the time he returned to work and the evidence in the record suggesting Plaintiff was still being treated for his injury, I conclude that the application of Seagraves was proper and the Commission’s decision should therefore be affirmed.