State ex rel. Baker v. Indus. Comm., 98-556.

• Decision Date: 26 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-556.,98-556.
• Parties: THE STATE EX REL. BAKER, APPELLANT, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF OHIO ET AL., APPELLEES.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

87 Ohio St.3d 561

722 NE 2d 67

THE STATE EX REL. BAKER, APPELLANT, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF OHIO ET AL., APPELLEES.

No. 98-556.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted November 2, 1999.

Decided January 26, 2000.

M. Blake Stone, for appellant.

Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and C. Bradley Howenstein, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee Industrial Commission.

Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, L.L.P., Richard A. Hernandez and Brett L. Miller, for appellee Stahl-Wooster Division, A Scott Fetzer Company. Per Curiam.

In State ex rel. McGraw v. Indus. Comm. (1990), 56 Ohio St.3d 137, 564 N.E.2d 695, we held that a claimant who chooses to leave his or her former position of employment for reasons unrelated to the industrial injury forfeits TTC eligibility. In McGraw, the court quoted with approval from State ex rel. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Indus. Comm. (1985), 29 Ohio App.3d 145, 29 OBR 162, 504 N.E.2d 451, syllabus:

"`[W]here the employee has taken action that would preclude his returning to his former position of employment, even if he were able to do so, he is not entitled to continued temporary total disability benefits since it is his own action, rather than the industrial injury, which prevents his returning to such former position of employment. Such action would include such situations as the acceptance of another position, as well as voluntary retirement.'" McGraw, 56 Ohio St.3d at 138, 564 N.E.2d at 697.

In this case, claimant's injury forced him from his former position of employment into lighter duty work with another employer. However, when claimant quit S-W, his actions effectively precluded a return to any position with that company, invoking the principles of McGraw and Jones & Laughlin.

Claimant asks us to overrule McGraw, and, in so doing, many of the decisions that underlie it. This we refuse to do. He alternatively asks us to find that his departure from S-W was injury-induced. We again decline.

Claimant left S-W for another job. The latter employment, by claimant's own admission, had the same physical demands as the job at which he was hurt. This finding undermines his assertion that he quit S-W because he could not do the work and provides "some evidence" supporting the commission's determination that claimant's departure was not injury-induced.

Contrary to claimant's suggestion, the commission was not required to accept claimant's uncorroborated statement that a S-W employee implied that his job was in...