January, 2019 | The Law Offices of Gregory D. Jordan

Retaliation claim over firing that took place soon after workplace injury should have gone to jury

The close proximity in time between a construction worker’s termination and his filing of a workers’ compensation claim, along with other factors that called the employer’s justification into question, should have been enough to get the employee past the employer’s motion for a judgment in their favor, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held recently in a retaliatory termination case.

Reversing the trial court in a case in which the worker was fired just 15 days after he injured himself in a fall from a scaffold, and 11 days after he filed a workers’ compensation claim, the court said that the worker had presented enough evidence to get his case to the jury. The court, in an opinion written by Judge Catharina Haynes, called the judge’s decision to direct a verdict in favor of the employer “unexplained and difficult to discern.”

The Texas Supreme Court, in Cont’l Coffee Prods. Co. v. Cazarez, 937 S.W.2d 444, 451 (Tex. 1996), set out a list of factors for trial courts to consider when deciding whether unlawful retaliation played a role in a termination following a workers’ compensation claim:

  • Did the manager making the decision on the termination have knowledge of the compensation claim?
  • Did the manager express a negative attitude toward the employee’s injured condition?
  • Did the manager fail to adhere to established company policies?
  • Is there evidence of discriminatory treatment in comparison to similarly situated employees?
  • Is there evidence that the stated reason for the discharge was false?

Here, the Fifth Circuit, without passing on the merits of the employee’s retaliation claim, found more than enough evidence to withstand the employer’s motion for judgment as a matter of law.

First, the firing took place two weeks after the injury, and the manager was aware of both the injury and the subsequent filing of a worker’s compensation claim.

Second, the manager failed to follow the company’s progressive discipline policy — he jumped from Step One (verbal warning) to Step Five (termination), skipping the intermediate steps.

Third, the manager expressed a negative attitude toward the employee, describing his injury as a “supposed injury” and his physical restrictions as “self-imposed.”

Fourth, the manager — who in fact was the employer’s safety officer and not the employee’s direct supervisor at the time of the accident — offered several, shifting explanations for why the employee was fired. The employee was initially verbally warned for failing to pick up paperwork, then later fired after the manager accused him of being profane and insubordinate on a single occasion. However, the company’s documentation of the firing mentioned only “Violation of Safety Rules” and “Violation of Company Policy/Practices.” It described the employee’s injury as an occasion in which the employee “took it upon himself to utilize a scaffold of which he was not trained or authorized to use.”

The court decided that the circumstances surrounding the employee’s termination were circumstantial evidence of retaliatory motive.

“[The employee] has presented evidence to support the notion that the stated reason for discharge was false,” the court ruled, sending the retaliation claim back to the lower court for retrial.

The case is Cristain v. Hunter Buildings and Manufacturing LP, No. 17-20667 (5th Cir., decided Nov. 14, 2018).

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