United States: In Retaliatory Discharge Action, Proximity of Firing to Claim Was Insufficient to Establish Issue of Fact

Although proximity in time between the filing of a workers' compensation claim and the firing of the employee can be important in establishing the retaliatory motives of the employer, it is insufficient where the employer comes forward with a valid, non-pretextual reason for the termination, held a federal district court, construing Colorado law. The employer's evidence indicated the terminated employee had become embroiled in a fight at work -- a violation of the employer's zero-tolerance policy regarding workplace violence. Where, as here, plaintiff's sole evidence of retaliatory motive was the closeness in time between his claim and the firing, it could not survive the defendant's motion for summary judgment.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Donez v. Leprino Foods, Inc., 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68681 (D. Colo. Apr. 20, 2020)

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

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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