A recent ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court expands protections for workers injured on the job. In Sutton v. Tomco Machining, Inc., (No. 2011-Ohio-2723), the Court ruled that an employee who is injured on the job but has not yet filed a workers’ compensation claim is nonetheless protected from retaliation.

According to court documents, the plaintiff injured his back in April 2008 while disassembling a chop saw at Dayton-based Tomco Machining, Inc. He reported the injury to the company’s president, who fired him within the hour. The plaintiff, who had worked for Tomco for more than 2 years, was not given a reason for the firing but was told that it was not due to any performance issues or policy violations.

The worker filed suit under Ohio Revised Code Sec. 4123.90, which prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who file workers’ compensation claims. The Court ruled that while the statute does not expressly protect workers who have not yet filed or pursued a workers’ compensation claim from retaliation, its intent is to protect all injured workers against workers’ compensation retaliation, regardless of their claim status. Leaving a gap in protection before the filing of a claim would create a “footrace” between employer and employee following an injury, the Court found.

The Court did not find, however, that the timing of the firing was sufficient to establish retaliation. The Court noted that other factors, such as “a reasonable suspicion that the injury was not job related, or a disregard by the employee for the employer’s safety rules, or an immediate need for a replacement employee” could have led to the firing, and that “no presumption of retaliation arises from the fact that an employee is discharged soon after an injury.” The Court remanded the question of retaliation back to trial court, where the plaintiff will have to prove that the firing was retaliatory by showing that Tomco lacked an overriding business justification for firing him.

The Court provided some protections for employers in turn: the ruling limits any resulting award to the remedies provided under Sec. 4123.90, which include reinstatement, lost wages and costs.