Alabama Trucker Not Bound by Jurisdictional Limitation in Her Employment Agreement

Where an Alabama resident sustained injuries in a work-related vehicular accident in Alabama, she could seek workers’ compensation benefits before an Alabama court in spite of a broad provision in her employment agreement that indicated her employment was principally localized in Tennessee, and that jurisdiction for disputes related to her employment would be determined in Tennessee, held an Alabama appellate court [Sellers v. Venture Express, Inc., 2021 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 9 (Feb. 12, 2021)]. The court also stressed that, as a general rule, an employee may not validly contract away the employee’s right to seek workers’ compensation benefits under the Act for a covered accident.

Background

Sellers, an Alabama resident, was involved in a vehicular accident in Alabama on September 3, 2017, while operating a tractor-trailer for her employer, Venture Express (“VE”). As relevant here, she filed a complaint against VE seeking workers’ compensation benefits. VE moved to dismiss the action against it, arguing that the only proper forum for Sellers’s workers’ compensation claim would be a Tennessee court. In support of its motion, VE attached a copy of an agreement signed by Sellers indicating that her employment would be deemed “principally localized in Tennessee” and purporting to provide that any claims for workers’ compensation benefits asserted by Sellers against VE would be governed by Tennessee law.

Trial Court Dismisses Action Against Employer

The trial court dismissed Sellers’s workers’ compensation claim against VE on the ground that the agreement provided for the courts of Tennessee to serve as the exclusive forum for Sellers’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits. Sellers appealed. The appellate court framed the issue:

The salient question on appeal is whether the agreement mandated the trial court’s dismissal of Sellers’s workers’ compensation claim against Venture Express because it was asserted in an Alabama court rather than a Tennessee court. Stated another way, we must consider whether the agreement required Sellers to seek workers’ compensation benefits only in a Tennessee court and only under Tennessee law despite her having been injured in Alabama. The Act mandates that, because this appeal concerns a question of law, this court must apply no presumption of correctness to the trial court’s ruling. Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-81(e)(1).

Employer’s Contentions

In support of its argument that Tennessee was the exclusive forum for Sellers’s workers’ compensation claim, VE cited subsection (c) of § 25-5-35, Ala. Code 1975. That subsection provides:

(c) An employee whose duties require him to travel regularly in the service of his employer in this and one or more other states may, by written agreement with his employer, provide that his employment is principally localized in this or another such state; and, unless such other state refuses jurisdiction, such agreement shall be given effect under this section.

Context of § 25-5-35(c)

The appellate court noted, however, that in order to understand the proper scope of § 25-5-35(c), the subsection needed to be considered within the context of the entire statute and within the context of the section’s enactment in 1975. As noted by the court, Section 25-5-35 was added to address the “extraterritorial coverage”of Alabama’s workers’ compensation laws and was an incorporation, in substantial part, of model legislation (“the model act”) drafted by the Council of State Governments’ Advisory Committee on Workmen’s Compensation (“the Council”).

Many within the workers’ compensation world will note that the model act was, for its part, drafted to address the problem created by a mishmash of various state conflict-of-laws statutes and jurisprudence, which had too often resulted in situations in which a worker injured while laboring outside the worker’s home state was left without a remedy.

The appellate court cited a paper written by my mentor, Arthur Larson, and submitted to the National Commission, entitled “Conflict of Laws in Workmen’s Compensation.” Therein, Dr. Larson urged a pragmatic approach: that an employee or his survivor be given the choice of filing a claim in the State where the injury or death occurred, or where the employment was principally localized, or where the employee was hired.

Alabama Adopted Section 7 of the Model Act

The court, continuing its excellent summary of the historical-legal context of the issue, noted that Alabama adopted Section 7 of the Model Act in near verbatim fashion [see Ala. Code § 25-5-35 (1975). That section sets forth parameters under which the substantive provisions of the Act may properly be applied to work-related injuries occurring outside Alabama.

Injuries Occurring Inside the State of Alabama

The court stressed that Ala. Code § 25-5-35(g) provided that an Alabama court may entertain an action to recover workers’ compensation benefits under the Act with respect to an injury occurring within the state regardless of the localization of the employment of the injured employee. Based on that provision, the court was require to consider to what extent, if any, an employee and an employer may enter into a preinjury choice-of-law or forum-selection agreement regarding a workers’ compensation claim.

Parties May Not Limit Alabama’s Jurisdiction by Agreement

Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 143.07[1], the court concluded that § 25-5-35(c) did not authorize the parties to agree to limit the jurisdiction of the Act. Accordingly, that portion of the agreement purporting to restrict Sellers’s ability to seek workers’ compensation benefits under the Act [for injuries sustained in Alabama] was void as against public policy. The trial court’s decision purporting to establish Tennessee as the exclusive forum for resolution of Sellers’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits was erroneous.