Why Does Alabama Law Protect Injured Workers From Retaliatory Discharge?

Why Does Alabama Law Protect Injured Workers From Retaliatory Discharge?

An Alabama employer generally has broad authority to terminate an at-will employee. But there is an important exception: an employer cannot fire an employee solely because the employee sought workers’ compensation benefits.  That protection is found in Ala. Code § 25-5-11.1, Alabama’s retaliatory discharge statute.

Why did Alabama create this exception to its otherwise broad employment-at-will rule?

The answer is important. If employers could fire workers simply for seeking workers’ compensation benefits, the right to those benefits could become meaningless.

An injured worker should not have to choose between reporting a workplace injury and keeping a job, and the history behind Alabama’s retaliatory discharge statute shows that this protection did not arise by accident.

Alabama Did Not Always Recognize Retaliatory Discharge

To understand today’s law, it helps to go back to 1984.

In Meeks v. Opp Cotton Mills, Inc., 459 So. 2d 814 (Ala. 1984), an employee asked the Alabama Supreme Court to recognize a claim against an employer for allegedly firing him because he filed a workers’ compensation claim.  At that time, Alabama had no statute specifically creating such a claim, and the Alabama Supreme Court declined to create one judicially.  The Court adhered to Alabama’s traditional employment-at-will rule, under which an at-will employee could be discharged for no reason, a good reason—or even a wrong reason.

But the Meeks decision did something else that proved important.  It effectively left the question to the Alabama Legislature.

And the Legislature responded.

The Alabama Legislature Changed the Law

The Alabama Supreme Court denied rehearing in Meeks on September 7, 1984; less than three months later, the Alabama Legislature enacted what became Ala. Code § 25-5-11.1.

Years later, the Alabama Supreme Court described what happened rather memorably. In Hexcel Decatur, Inc. v. Vickers, 908 So. 2d 237 (Ala. 2005), the Court said the Legislature had accepted the Meeks Court’s “thinly veiled invitation” to modify Alabama’s employment-at-will doctrine.

That history matters.

The Legislature deliberately carved out protection for employees seeking workers’ compensation benefits.

Section 25-5-11.1 provides, in pertinent part: “No employee shall be terminated by an employer solely because the employee has instituted or maintained any action against the employer to recover workers’ compensation benefits….”

In other words, Alabama retained its strong employment-at-will rule but created a specific statutory exception for workers pursuing benefits after a job injury.

Recommended Reading: Can My Employer Fire Me After I File a Workers’ Compensation Claim in Alabama?

Our first article in this series explains the important distinction between being fired after a workplace injury and being fired because of a workers’ compensation claim.

Why Was This Protection Necessary?

Imagine two employees working side by side.

One suffers a serious back injury while lifting something at work. The employee reports the injury and seeks medical treatment.  A week later, the employer fires him because he pursued workers’ compensation.

The second employee watches what happens.  Several months later, she injures her shoulder at work.

What does she do?

She may reasonably think: “If I report this, I’ll lose my job too.”

Perhaps she doesn’t report the accident.  Perhaps she doesn’t seek medical care.  Perhaps she uses her own health insurance and denies that the injury occurred at work.

A workers’ compensation system cannot accomplish its purpose if employees are afraid to use it.

That concern was recognized even before § 25-5-11.1 existed.

The dissent in Meeks argued that allowing an employer to fire an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim could chill an employee’s exercise of the statutory right to compensation.   The Legislature’s response to Meeks provided the statutory protection that Alabama law had previously lacked.

Recommended Reading: Can I Use My Own Insurance For Medical Treatment?

Alabama Courts Have Said Retaliation Against Injured Workers Is “Deplorable”

The strength of the public policy behind § 25-5-11.1 becomes particularly clear in White v. Midtown Restaurant Corp., 632 So. 2d 1330 (Ala. 1994).

The Alabama Supreme Court stated: “Retaliation of any kind against an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim is deplorable.”

That is unusually strong language from an appellate court.

The Court was not saying that every unfair act occurring after a workers’ compensation claim necessarily creates a claim under § 25-5-11.1. In fact, White involved a demotion rather than a termination, and the Court concluded that the statute did not provide the plaintiff a remedy for that particular conduct, yet the Court’s description of retaliation as “deplorable” is significant.

It tells us something about the policy underlying Alabama law.  The right to workers’ compensation benefits is supposed to be a meaningful right—not one that an employee can exercise only at the risk of losing a livelihood.

Retaliatory discharge is one of the relatively unusual areas of Alabama workers’ compensation law in which appellate decisions express such strong disapproval of conduct interfering with a worker’s rights.

The Law Protects Seeking Benefits—Not Just Filing a Lawsuit

There is another important part of this history.  Section 25-5-11.1 says an employee cannot be fired for having “instituted or maintained any action” to recover workers’ compensation benefits.

An employer once argued that this meant an employee was protected only after actually filing a lawsuit in court.  The Alabama Supreme Court rejected that narrow interpretation in McClain v. Birmingham Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 578 So. 2d 1299 (Ala. 1991).  The Court concluded that limiting the statute to employees who had already filed a lawsuit would undermine its remedial purpose. An employee could therefore pursue a retaliatory discharge claim even though the employer fired the employee before a formal workers’ compensation lawsuit had been filed.

That makes practical sense; otherwise, an employer who wanted to retaliate could simply act quickly: “Fire the employee before a lawsuit gets filed.”  Such an interpretation would provide the least protection precisely when an injured employee might be most vulnerable.

The protection concerns seeking workers’ compensation benefits—not merely beating the employer to the courthouse.

Alabama’s Retaliatory Discharge Law Is a Deliberate Exception to Employment at Will

This is what makes retaliatory discharge unusual.  On one side is Alabama’s extremely strong employment-at-will doctrine.

As the Alabama Supreme Court explained in Culbreth v. Woodham Plumbing Co., 599 So. 2d 1120, 1121 (Ala. 1992), an at-will employee ordinarily can be terminated “for a good reason, a wrong reason, or no reason at all.”

On the other side is § 25-5-11.1: You cannot fire an employee solely because the employee sought workers’ compensation benefits.

Those principles can appear to collide, but that collision is intentional.

The Legislature decided that an employer’s otherwise broad right to terminate an employee must give way when the real reason for the termination is the employee’s exercise of rights under Alabama’s Workers’ Compensation Act.

What If the Employer Says There Was Another Reason?

This is where retaliatory discharge law becomes considerably more complicated.

Suppose an employer says: “We didn’t fire her for workers’ compensation. We fired her for attendance,” or “He violated company policy,” or “Her performance had deteriorated.”

An employer is entitled to terminate an employee for a genuine, lawful reason, but merely stating another reason does not necessarily establish that it was the real reason.

Alabama courts therefore developed a framework for determining whether the employer’s explanation is legitimate or whether it is a pretext masking retaliation.

In Twilley v. Daubert Coated Products, Inc., 536 So. 2d 1364 (Ala. 1988), the Alabama Supreme Court established the burden-shifting approach that remains fundamental to these cases.

And in Alabama Power Co. v. Aldridge, 854 So. 2d 554 (Ala. 2002), the Court identified circumstances that may help establish the connection between the workers’ compensation claim and the termination.

We are going to spend considerable time on both cases because they explain how an injured worker can prove retaliation when the employer insists that workers’ compensation had nothing to do with the decision.

Recommended Reading: What Does “Solely” Really Mean Under Alabama’s Retaliatory Discharge Law?

That will be the next article in this series. It will explain why the single word “solely” is one of the most important—and most misunderstood—words in § 25-5-11.1.

Retaliatory Discharge Protects More Than One Injured Employee

There is a broader reason this law matters.  A retaliatory firing does not send a message only to the worker who was terminated.

Other employees are watching.

If employees see a coworker report an injury, seek medical treatment, and then suddenly lose a job, that experience can affect whether they report their own injuries in the future.  That is the chilling effect the law seeks to prevent.

It also helps explain why Alabama courts have instructed that the workers’ compensation laws should be construed in a manner that advances their beneficent purposes. In Culbreth, the Supreme Court warned against an approach that would make it too easy for an employer to defeat a retaliatory discharge claim simply by offering a facially legitimate explanation. The Court recognized that doing so could significantly undermine the purposes of § 25-5-11.1.

The statute therefore serves two related purposes: It protects the individual employee who exercises the right to seek workers’ compensation benefits, but it also protects the integrity of the workers’ compensation system itself by reducing the threat that exercising those rights will result in termination.

What This Means for an Injured Alabama Worker

Section 25-5-11.1 does not guarantee your job simply because you were injured at work.  It does not prevent an employer from enforcing legitimate rules, and it does not turn every termination occurring after a workers’ compensation claim into retaliatory discharge.

What it does provide is something extremely important: Your employer cannot lawfully make your pursuit of workers’ compensation benefits the reason prohibited by § 25-5-11.1 for terminating you.

When the employer claims there was another reason, the question becomes whether that explanation is legitimate—or pretextual.

And that is where the evidence matters.

Company policies.

Employment records.

Statements by supervisors.

How other employees were treated.

Changes in disciplinary practices.

The timing of events.

And whether the employer’s explanation remains consistent when closely examined.  Those issues take us directly into the next several articles in this series.

Recommended Reading

For more on this subject, see:

• What Does “Solely” Really Mean Under Alabama’s Retaliatory Discharge Law?
• The Aldridge Factors: How Alabama Workers Prove Retaliatory Discharge Without a Smoking Gun
• What Is Pretext in an Alabama Retaliatory Discharge Case?

If you have suffered a job injury, were subsequently fired and you have questions about your rights and benefits under Alabama’s workers compensation laws -don’t hesitate to contact and speak with one of the experienced Alabama Workers Compensation and Social Security Disability attorneys at Powell and Denny today for a free consultation. Appointments are available in person, or virtually via Zoom if more convenient.  Powell and Denny would appreciate the opportunity to help.  And remember, there is no fee unless you win.

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