Michigan: No Retaliatory Discharge Where Injured Employee Left Work Without Appropriate Excuse

In an unpublished decision, a Michigan appellate court affirmed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment favoring an employer in an injured worker’s retaliatory discharge action, finding that plaintiff could not make the requisite showing of a causal connection between the protected activity—seeking workers’ compensation benefits and requesting a hearing—and his termination. The evidence indicated that plaintiff’s physician opined that plaintiff could return to work, with restrictions, and that the defendant-employer attempted to comply with those restrictions, and, on two occasions, plaintiff ceased working after only a few hours. Other evidence tended to show that the employer, over the course of several months, informed plaintiff that he needed to either work, or provide proper documentation to excuse his absence from work. Plaintiff neither returned to work nor provided documentation to excuse his absence. It was only after plaintiff failed to either return to work or provide adequate documentation to excuse his absence that the employer began to inform plaintiff that his employment could be terminated. The court indicated the employer continued to provide plaintiff with more time and more opportunities to avoid termination of his employment, but plaintiff did not comply. Plaintiff accordingly had not satisfied his burden.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Lucero v. Department of Corrections, 2015 Mich. App. LEXIS 500 (Mar. 12, 2015) [2015 Mich. App. LEXIS 500 (Mar. 12, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 104.07 [104.07]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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