A Virginia worker injured her shoulder at work. When she returned to work at a light-duty position, she quickly finished her assigned tasks and spent the next 6 weeks sitting in an office doing nothing. Was she entitled to benefits after quitting?

What happened. “Clara” worked for Rochester Cable in Virginia in a job that required her to do heavy lifting. She injured her shoulder at work on June 14, 2006, and aggravated the injury in another workplace accident on July 28. Her doctor performed surgery on her shoulder, and she was unable to work for a number of weeks. Her employer paid her temporary total disability benefits from October 19, 2006, through January 17, 2007, at which point her doctor released her to light duty.

Rochester offered Clara a position performing data entry and filing, which she accepted. She returned to work on January 18 with the understanding that she would be working for two different departments, each of which was supposed to have 6 weeks worth of work for her to do. Instead, she managed to complete all of the work for both departments by the end of January. The company did not permit her to have reading material at her desk or to do anything other than company tasks while she was at work.

Clara spent the next 5 or 6 weeks with no tasks assigned to her. She begged the company to give her more work, but no one had anything for her to do. She told the workers’ compensation coordinator that she had expected to do desk work, not to have to go in to work and do nothing. She claimed that she would often go home crying because she had spent her day sitting in a room with nothing at all to do. Clara quit her job on March 12, 5 weeks and 5 days after she had completed all the work assigned to her. She did not provide her employer with formal notice that she had left the job.

Clara did not look for work for the next several months. She became disabled again in August, and had more surgery in December. She looked for light-duty work between January and June 2008. She applied for workers’ compensation benefits, claiming that Rochester had effectively forced her out of her job. At a hearing on June 12, 2008, the workers’ compensation commission awarded her benefits. It found that Rochester had failed to provide Clara with a bona fide offer of light duty, that she had not refused the work offered to her, and that she had tried to find work on her own. Rochester appealed.

What the court said. Rochester argued that Clara had refused its offer of employment. In order to prove this claim, Rochester had to show that it had made her a bona fide offer of employment suitable to her capacity and that she had unjustifiably refused to accept the job. Rochester offered Clara a job doing data entry and filing. It did not provide this job, and did not allow Clara to fill her time in any other pleasant/recreational way.

The court of appeals found that forcing her to sit unoccupied for an extended period of time was enough to cause real emotional strain and make her feel that she was “going crazy,” and so her refusal to continue working under those conditions was justified. Finding otherwise could appear to be encouragement to employers to deliberately create unbearable or demeaning light-duty jobs in an attempt to make employees quit so that employers do not have to pay them benefits.

Rochester also claimed that Clara had not marketed her residual capacity. In fact, Clara had contacted some 40 or 50 employers before receiving benefits, including some that required her to lift more than her physical limitations permitted. Before her injury she regularly lifted weights up to 50 pounds, but after her surgeries she was restricted to weights under 10 pounds. (She wanted to return to her former job helping with handicapped students, but could not because she could no longer lift more than 10 pounds.) The court held that this was adequate proof that she had tried to find work. It affirmed the commission’s decision awarding Clara benefits. Rochester Cable v. Carpenter, Court of Appeals of Virginia, No. 2139-09-4 (6/8/10)

Point to remember: An employee who accepts “light-duty” work at reduced wages receives partial disability benefits consisting of two-thirds of his or her wage loss, calculated as the difference between preinjury wages and current earnings. If an injured employee unjustifiably refuses an offer of light-duty work suitable to his or her capacity, wage-replacement benefits may be ordered interrupted by the commission until the employee accepts a suitable offer.