Court Opinion

ID: 9729957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:53:43.133762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:02.582829
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE DONOVAN, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. In this case, the majority has announced a new principle which provides that temporary disability benefits may be discontinued where an employee who, upon returning to light duty or to a rehabilitation assignment, is terminated from the work force as a result of his volitional acts of conduct (or misconduct) that are unrelated to his disabling condition. Though I accept the general principle, I cannot join in the remainder of the decision because the majority provides no standards for practical application of the newly announced principle. In addition, I disagree with the outright reversal of the Commission’s decision to award the claimant temporary disability and maintenance benefits. According to the record, the claimant is a construction carpenter who was stricken with heat exhaustion on July 2, 2003, while working on a scaffold. Emergency responders were called to the work site to evaluate the claimant’s condition. The medics determined that the claimant should be transported to the hospital for treatment. The medics placed the claimant on a backboard. As the medics began to move the claimant, they dropped him. His head and neck struck a toe board. The claimant felt pain in the back of his head and neck, and tingling in his arm immediately after the incident. The claimant was diagnosed with heat exhaustion, a mild concussion with postconcussion headaches and blurred vision, and a cervical strain with tingling in the right arm. An MRI revealed a small, broad-based disc bulge at C5-6. The claimant’s physician noted complaints of severe sleep interruption and occasions of irritability and a short temper. The claimant’s physician’s differential diagnosis included possible cognitive problems. The claimant began to work light duty in February 2005. His duties included cleaning the yard, organizing material, cleaning and organizing the storage facility, unloading trucks, and emptying scaffolding racks. The claimant was paid $20 an hour for the light-duty work, and he received a maintenance benefit from the respondent’s workers’ compensation carrier. He had been earning $32.15 an hour prior to the accident. The claimant worked light duty until May 25, 2005, the date that the respondent terminated him for “defacing company property.” The claimant acknowledged that he wrote religious maxims on the shelving in the storage area where he worked in April 2005. The claimant noted that he had seen other non-work-related writing and graffiti on the walls and on equipment at his work place. Photos admitted into evidence showed the writings for which claimant admitted responsibility and the other writings that the claimant referenced in his testimony. The claimant stated that his direct supervisor, two other supervisors, and Jan Coffey, the company president’s administrative assistant, knew of his conduct several weeks before he was terminated. Prior to the date of termination, no one confronted the claimant about his actions and no one asked or ordered him to paint over his writings. The claimant was discharged only after he had a run-in with Jan Coffey over a wage overpayment. Jan Coffey conceded that the claimant was not a problem employee. She noted that the company president was meticulous about his building, but she did not identify a company rule or policy that addressed the type of conduct committed by the claimant or the discipline for such conduct. Coffey stated that she did not know what consequences her boss would impose. It has been long held that the overriding purpose of the Illinois workers’ compensation scheme is to compensate an employee for lost earnings resulting from work-related injuries. Freeman United Coal Mining Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 99 Ill. 2d 487, 496, 459 N.E.2d 1368, 1373 (1984); Lambert v. Industrial Comm’n, 411 Ill. 593, 606, 104 N.E.2d 783, 789 (1952). Equally long-standing is the proposition that our workers’ compensation laws should be interpreted and applied in a practical and commonsense manner to accomplish the ultimate purpose of the Act. Lambert, 411 Ill. at 599, 104 N.E.2d at 786. Whether temporary disability benefits may be discontinued where an employee who, upon returning to light duty or to a rehabilitation assignment, is terminated from the work force is a question that has not been addressed in any reported decision in Illinois. The majority reviewed decisions from the courts of other jurisdictions and identified the two separate approaches to the issue. Compare Palmer v. Alliance Compressors, 917 So. 2d 510, 514 (La. App. 2005), with Seagraves v. Austin Co., 123 N.C. App. 228, 472 S.E.2d 397 (1996). The majority concluded that the reasoned approach of jurisdictions that deny compensation to employees who, upon returning to modified duty or a rehabilitation assignment, are terminated for just cause unrelated to their disabling conditions comports with the purpose behind the Illinois workers’ compensation scheme. I accept this general principle, but I find the majority’s decision to be incomplete because it lacks standards for a practical application of this new principle. After reviewing a number of authorities from other jurisdictions, I conclude that the framework set forth in the Seagraves decision provides a practical, commonsense approach that would serve the ultimate purpose of our compensation system. Seagraves, 123 N.C. App. at 233-34, 472 N.E.2d at 401. In my view, an employer, who terminates an injured employee and who discontinues the employee’s temporary benefits, has the burden to establish (a) that the employee violated a rule or policy, (b) that the employee was fired for a violation of that rule or policy, (c) that the violation would ordinarily result in the termination of a nondisabled employee, and (d) that the violation was a voluntary act within the control of the employee and not caused by the employee’s disability. If the employer establishes that its employee has engaged in misconduct constituting a constructive refusal to perform the work provided or to participate in the rehabilitation plan, then the burden shifts to the employee to produce evidence to rebut the employer’s evidence or to establish that his work-related injury contributed to his subsequent wage loss. If the employee establishes that the medical restrictions resulting from the work-related injury prevent him from securing employment at pre-injury work levels, temporary disability benefits should be payable for the loss of earning capacity. Under this framework, it is not sufficient to show that there is just cause for the termination. The employer must show that there is just cause for the employer’s refusal to pay temporary disability benefits. This type of approach serves to prevent an employer from using an infraction of company policy as a pretext for terminating an injured employee and cutting off his temporary disability benefits and to protect an employee against harassment leading to voluntary termination, and it also serves to insulate an employer against unacceptable behavior that ordinarily would result in the termination of an employee. See Seagraves, 123 N.C. App. at 234, 472 S.E.2d at 401; Porter v. Ford Motor Co., 109 Mich. App. 728, 732, 311 N.W.2d 458, 460 (1981). The majority has determined that the Commission’s decision to award the claimant temporary disability benefits following his termination should be reversed outright. The majority concluded that the claimant “tacitly conceded that he was removed from the work force as a result of volitional acts unrelated to his injury” (385 Ill. App. 3d at 1047-48), based on his acknowledgments that he had written maxims with religious themes on shelves in the storage area where he worked and that his writings were unrelated to his job duties, and that the claimant would have continued receiving his temporary disability benefits until his condition stabilized had he not defaced the respondent’s property. After a careful review of the record, I do not find adequate evidence to support this conclusion. In this case, the nature of the claimant’s termination was not addressed by the arbitrator or the Commission. There is no finding, express or implied, that the claimant was terminated for “just cause.”2 This may be because the parties presented little evidence on that issue. There is no evidence in the record to show that the claimant’s conduct violated an established company rule, and there is no evidence that the act of “defacing company property” triggered an immediate termination, rather than a suspension or a lesser discipline. The parties presented no evidence in regard to whether an able-bodied employee had ever been terminated for such conduct. There is no evidence in regard to whether the claimant would be able to find and hold other employment due to the work-related disabilities and the resulting medical restrictions. Finally, I note that the claimant reported trouble sleeping and an increase in irritability and temper since his injury, and that his treating physician was concerned about possible cognitive changes. Whether the claimant’s conduct is related to his postconcussion symptoms is a factual question that has not been addressed by either party. In light of the new principle announced in this disposition, I would reverse the decision of the Will County circuit court, vacate the decision of the Commission, and remand this case to the Commission with instructions to afford the parties an opportunity to present additional evidence in accordance with the framework set forth in this decision. JUSTICE HOLDRIDGE joins in this dissent.  It is important to note here that the Commission is charged with the responsibility to determine whether a covered employee suffered a work-related injury and, if so, the compensation to which he is entitled. Generally, it is not the role of the Commission to determine the reasons for an employee’s discharge. Since issues of “just cause” termination and retaliatory discharge are not within the purview of the Commission, res judicata would not apply to the Commission’s findings and determination that an employee’s temporary benefits were properly discontinued following termination.