The Indiana Supreme Court held that a trial court should have dismissed a teacher’s case alleging she was fired in retaliation for contemplating filing a workers’ compensation claim because she failed to allege the district was exclusively motivated by a desire not to pay the claim.
A trial court denied the district’s request for summary judgment, and a jury concluded that the South Bend Community School Corp. illegally fired Connie Grabowski in retaliation for a potential workers’ compensation claim and awarded her $600,000 in damages. An appellate court affirmed.
But the high court said the case should have been dismissed because the claim didn’t fit into the narrow exception to the state’s at-will employment doctrine.
The high court said one of the limited exceptions to the theory that employers can fire workers at any time for any reason is a prohibition on firing workers for filing a workers’ compensation claim to avoid liability. “The evidence at trial did not show — and Grabowski did not contend — that her injury (constructive retaliatory discharge) was caused solely because the school corporation was trying to avoid workers’ compensation liability,” the high court said. “Thus, this case should not have gone to the jury.”
The Supreme Court said while Indiana employers can generally fire employees for any reason, one of the few exceptions is the prohibition on firing a worker in retaliation for exercising a statutory right or duty.
The court said Grabowski admitted her claim was novel and based on the theory that she was fired in retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim that implicated one of her students.
In other words, the district’s actions “were not solely about workers’ compensation but (also) school politics,” the court said.
This article was first published in Business Insurance.
