NC Employer May Not Use Truck Driver’s “Misconduct” in Causing Accident as Excuse for Denying TTD Benefits
Where a North Carolina truck driver was terminated from employment because the employer determined that the driver had been at fault in causing an accident that resulted in his injuries, the employer could not subsequently maintain that the driver had constructively refused suitable employment where the employer deemed the driver ineligible for participation in the employer’s “return-to-work” program, held a state appellate court in Richards v. Harris Teeter, Inc., 2022-NCCOA-595, 2022 N.C. App. LEXIS (Sept. 6, 2022). The court reviewed the state’s so-called Seagraves test, which holds that, under appropriate circumstances, an employee’s termination for misconduct may constitute a constructive refusal of suitable employment on the part of the former employee, such that he or she is also disqualified from receiving temporary total disability benefits. The court determined, however, that here the alleged misconduct was the same “conduct” that had caused the injury. Fault should play no role within the workers’ compensation scheme. Accordingly, the Seagraves test had not been satisfied by the employer.
Background
Richards, a truck driver for the employer, sustained injuries in a single-vehicle accident on 3 August 2019, when his truck “ran off the road returning from Virginia.” An EMS record indicated that shortly after the accident, Richards said that his mind may have drifted just before the accident.
Richards sought workers’ compensation benefits for a “low back” injury. The employer began paying indemnity benefits and medical compensation to Richards, and did not contest the compensability of the claim within the statutory deadline, thereby accepting the compensability of his “low back” injury.
Shortly after the accident, the employer terminated Richard’s employment. A workers’ compensation claims manager later testified that Richard’s “review committee” determined that the accident was preventable. Richard’s personnel records indicate that he was terminated for a “Violation of Established Safety Procedures”—namely, that the employer’s camera in the cab of the truck showed that Richards closed his eyes for approximately seven to ten seconds, which led to the single-vehicle accident. The personnel records also indicated that Richards was, therefore, not eligible for rehire.
Testimony at a hearing indicated that the employer had a mandatory return-to-work program for injured workers and that it had numerous positions available for an injured employee, depending upon his or her limitations. One of the employer’s representatives testified, however, that since Richards was not eligible for rehire, the employer had not offered him any post-accident position, nor did it provide any vocational rehabilitative services to assist Richards in locating suitable employment.
Following a hearing on the claim, the Deputy Commissioner ordered that the employer pay TTD until Richards returned to work, until further order of the Industrial Commission, or until compensation was otherwise legally terminated. The employer appealed to the Full Commission, which affirmed in relevant part.
Appellate Court Decision
Initially, the Court of Appeals noted that the parties had stipulated that Richards had been injured during the scope of his employment and that the initial compensability of Richard’s lower back injury resulting from the accident was also undisputed. The court stressed that the appeal concerned whether Richards constructively refused suitable employment where the employer deemed him ineligible for participation in the employer’s “return-to-work” program.
The court further acknowledged that the employer (and its carrier) argued that the Full Commission erred by failing to find that Richards constructively refused suitable employment, and by failing to apply the test for constructive refusal of suitable employment first articulated by the North Carolina Court of Appeals in Seagraves v. Austin Co., 123 N.C. App. 228, 472 S.E.2d 397 (1996), and subsequently adopted by the state Supreme Court in McRae v. Toastmaster, Inc., 358 N.C. 488, 597 S.E.2d 695 (2004).
The employer also argued that the Full Commission erred by failing to find that the employer had not shown that Richard’s termination was unrelated to his compensable injury, and by concluding that Richards remained disabled or that he conducted a reasonable job search.
The Seagraves Test
The court acknowledged that under the Seagraves test, in order to bar payment of benefits, an employer must demonstrate initially that:
- The employee was terminated for misconduct;
- The same misconduct would have resulted in the termination of a non-disabled employee; and
- The termination was unrelated to the employee’s compensable injury.
The court stressed that under the test, the employer bears the burden to show, by the greater weight of the evidence, that an injured employee’s termination was unrelated to his or her work-related injuries. Moreover, stressed the court, the burden is not on the former employee to show that the termination was so related.
Was Fault an Issue?
The court acknowledged that the employer did not argue on appeal that fault had any place in the compensability determination, nor did the employer dispute the compensability of Richard’s injury. Nevertheless, the court said the employer argued that fault did have a place—or at least, it should—in the workers’ compensation system, when it came to determining when an employer may subsequently terminate workers’ compensation benefits. Quoting the state Supreme Court in McRae, the court in the instant case said:
[A]ny rule that would allow employers to evade benefit payments simply because the recipient-employee was terminated for misconduct could be open to abuse. Such a rule could give employers an incentive to find circumstances that would constitute misconduct by employees who were previously injured on the job [McRae, 358 N.C. at 495].
The appellate court found that the employer’s position here was fundamentally incompatible with the well-established principles and purposes of the workers’ compensation system, which deliberately eliminates negligence from its calculus in all but certain narrowly defined instances. The court concluded, therefore, that the Full Commission had not erred in finding that the Seagraves test did not apply in the instant case.