Court Opinion

ID: 9727031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:17:39.513847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:32.926375
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result, but disagree with the majority’s interpretation of Lawson v. Haven Hubbard Homes, Inc. (1990), Ind.App., 551 N.E.2d 855. In Lawson, we held that an at-will employee did not have a cause of action for retaliatory discharge when she was terminated in retaliation for filing an unemployment compensation claim. The majority interprets Lawson to mean that retaliatory discharge actions are restricted to only terminations in response to the employee’s filing a workmen’s compensation claim. On the contrary, Lawson was limited to its facts. The parties stipulated that Lawson’s employment was terminated because she filed for unemployment compensation when her employer refused to permit her to return to work after she had been released to return to work by her doctor following an injury covered by workmen’s compensation. We noted that the purpose of permitting the cause of action in workmen’s compensation cases was to eliminate “the deleterious effect on the exercise *1231of a statutory right.” Lawson, supra, at 860. No such deleterious effect was present in Lawson. As we explained:
If Lawson files for unemployment benefits because her Employer unjustifiably refuses to allow her to return to work, she has not voluntarily left her employment without good cause and she will receive benefits. If she files a claim for unemployment benefits and her Employer fires her in retaliation, she has not been discharged for “just cause” and again, she will receive benefits. Id. at 860.
In either situation, Lawson was requesting and entitled to the same benefits. Therefore, there was no deleterious effect on the exercise of her statutory right.
Under the facts in Lawson, there was no reason to extend the exception created in Frampton v. Central Indiana Gas Company (1973), 260 Ind. 249, 297 N.E.2d 425 and further extended in McClanahan v. Remington Freight Lines (1988), Ind., 517 N.E.2d 390. The majority reads Lawson too broadly. Lawson merely followed the rationale articulated in Frampton and McClanahan.