Injury's Link to Truck Crash Defeats Constructive Job Refusal Argument

Matthews, NC (WorkersCompensation.com) – In North Carolina, an employer may be able to defeat a workers’ compensation claim for an otherwise compensable injury by showing that a worker who was terminated for misconduct constructively refused suitable employment.  

But as a case involving a sleepy, Gatorade-loving truck driver shows, that argument only works if the termination is unrelated to the injury. Richards v. Harris Teeter, Inc., No. COA21-804 (N.C. Ct. App. 09/06/22). 

According to a hospital record, the truck driver said that he “lost control of his vehicle this morning just after taking a sip of Gatorade and wound up wrecking into a grassy field.” 

Soon after, the company terminated the driver for violating company safety procedures. 

Because of the trucker’s resulting low back injury, his doctor said he could no longer drive trucks. The driver, at 60-years-old, applied for other jobs—ones that did not require constant sitting or standing -- but received no offers. 

The company contended that the driver was not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. It argued that the driver constructively refused suitable employment because he was terminated for cause, and that but for his termination for cause, he would have remained employed with the company at his preinjury wages. 

In North Carolina, if an injured employee refuses suitable employment, the employee generally will not be entitled to any compensation at any time during the continuance of the refusal. 

The North Carolina Supreme Court, in McRae v. Toastmaster, Inc., 358 N.C. 488, S.E.2d 695 (N.C. 2004), explained that an employer can demonstrate constructive refusal by an employee to perform suitable work by showing that:  

The court also found that the company essentially sought to impose a for-cause bar to recovering benefits when an employee is unable to find suitable employment elsewhere. But that ran counter to the policies underlying the statute, the court indicated.

“Defendants' position is 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 wrote.

Accordingly, the court declined to find that the driver was constructively discharged. It affirmed the decision of the worker’s compensation commission awarding the driver temporary total disability benefits.  

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