The Goodyear plant in Logan, Ohio, had been experiencing attendance problems with a few employees in the fall of 1992. In early November, Richard Stivison’s supervisor asked him if a fellow employee, Jeff McCormick, had left early the day before.
The question forced Stivison to make a choice-to lie to protect a fellow employee (who had left early the previous day and several others) or to tell the truth and risk the ill will that “snitching” might cause.
Stivison felt it was his duty to answer truthfully and told his supervisor McCormick had been leaving early. McCormick learned who had reported him and held a grudge. Two weeks later, McCormick saw Stivison at a local restaurant and assaulted him.
As a result of the beating, Stivison suffered two black eyes, a fractured nose and two broken bones in his left forearm that required steel plates.
Upon hearing this, you might think this case came to the Supreme Court of Ohio on charges of criminal assault. But it didn’t. It arrived as a workers’ compensation case.
After the beating, Stivison filed a workers’ comp claim for the injuries McCormick had inflicted on him. Goodyear opposed the allowance of the claim. The case went through the normal channels of the workers’ comp system ultimately reaching the Industrial Commission-the “high court” of the workers’ comp system, which affirmed the claim in favor of Stivison.
Goodyear appealed the Industrial Commission ruling to the common pleas court which found in favor of Goodyear. After several layers of appeals the case reached the Supreme Court of Ohio.
At first glance, it may seem that Goodyear shouldn’t be held responsible for what happens when its employees aren’t at work. If McCormick beat up Stivison at a restaurant a mile away from the plant, how could his injuries be Goodyear’s fault?
The workers’ comp law defines an injury that an employer would be responsible for as “any injury … received in the course of, and arising out of, the injured employee’s employment.” The question was whether Stivison’s broken nose and arm fit those criteria.
Stivison argued his injuries were work related because they stemmed from his truthful response to the question about McCormick leaving early. There have been instances before when the court has ruled that an employer can be held responsible for injuries that occurred away from the place of employment if the injury is somehow work related.
Even though there are exceptions, Stivison’s injuries didn’t fit any of them. I joined Chief Justice Moyer and Justices Cook and Lundberg Stratton in a 4-3 decision which ruled that, as a matter of law, Stivison’s injuries fell short of meeting the criteria for both “in the course of” and “arising out of” employment. Our decision affirmed the court of appeals judgement in favor of Goodyear.
In her dissent, Justice Alice Robie Resnick wrote that the majority sent a message “to the Ohio worker … that if you suffer disabling injuries as a result of having truthfully answered your employer’s work-related inquiries, it is you alone who will bear the burden of economic loss.”
She believed the question in this case should have been whether “delayed-action” injuries are compensable. Delayed-action injuries are those that have their origins in the workplace, but the physical impact happens someplace later on.
It is not particularly satisfying, but it often happens that in difficult cases, justices will interpret the law in different ways. The truth is there’s almost always room for reasonable people to reasonably disagree.
Unfortunately for Richard Stivison, Jeff McCormick was not a reasonable person. And while I’m comfortable our decision was the correct one, it leaves Stivison without workers’ comp coverage for the injuries he very unreasonably received.
Paul E. Pfeifer is a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. The case: Stivison vs. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. was decided Dec. 31, 1997.
