A worker in Ohio who was injured working for one employer was then terminated by her subsequent employer. She wanted to bring a case against her subsequent employer for retaliatory discharge because she was terminated when she sought workers’ comp benefits even though she was seeking benefits from her prior employer and the injury was suffered at her previous job.

The Eighth Appellate District Court of Appeals said that there was no cause of action against her current employer, since they were not her employer at the time of his injury they did not commit retaliation against her by firing her.

Simone McGree worked for Gateway Healthcare Centre beginning in 2016. She filed a workers’ comp claim against a prior employer that she sustained in 2014 with them. Gateway said they had fired her because she had not obtained pre-employment medical clearance to return to work from her workers’ compensation physician.

When she was terminated, she filed for wrongful termination based on disability discrimination and violation of public policy, and workers’ comp retaliation. Gateway maintained that because she never suffered an injury with them and she filed against her previous employer, she could not make a claim using workers’ comp act protections like retaliatory discharge and a violation of public policy. The appellate court agreed that for an action to be retaliatory or discriminatory, the workers’ compensation claim in question must be related to an injury that occurred in the course and scope of their employment and that employer. Gateway was not the employer and she did not file a claim with them. It was determined that she couldn’t provide evidence to show her discharge was connected to a workers’ comp claim she pursued against Gateway.

Read more on this story and read the full case here.