Ohio: In Retaliatory Discharge Action, Former Worker Need Not Establish Compensable Injury

Ohio’s retaliatory discharge statute, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4123.90, seeks to protect the state’s employees on a no-fault basis from adverse employer actions following their the pursuit of benefits; there need not be any actual award of benefits to support the worker’s retaliatory discharge civil action, held a divided Ohio Supreme Court. The worker sought workers’ compensation benefits, but the Industrial Commission determined that the worker’s injuries were not sustained in the course and scope of his employment, but rather while he pumped gas for his car on his own time. Subsequent to that determination, the employer fired the worker, based upon his “deceptive” effort to collect benefits. The employer contended that particularly when the retaliatory discharge action was filed after a denial of benefits, there could be no retaliation since there had been no covered injury. Affirming a lower court, the majority of the Supreme Court disagreed with the employer, finding that under the statute, the statute issue related to the employer’s response to the plaintiff’s pursuit of benefits, not any award of benefits.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis%20Workers’%20Compensation%20eNewsletter">LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s%20Workers’%20Compensation%20Law">Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

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See Onerko v. Sierra Lobo, Inc., 2016-Ohio–5027, 2016 Ohio LEXIS 1892 (July 21, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 104.07.

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

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