Mining Company That Adhered To CBA Entitled To Terminate Worker With Osteoporosis
At a West Virginia coal mine, an inside bunker attendant responsible for monitoring an underground belt haulage system was injured as a result of a fall. She previously had been diagnosed with osteoporosis. Several months later, she informed the mining company that she was ready to return to work, but the company’s workers’ compensation administrator concluded that her osteoporosis precluded a return to work after a physician evaluation. At the time, the worker was 52 years old and not yet eligible for retirement, and the worker brought suit alleging that she was wrongfully terminated because of the company’s fear of future workers’ compensation claims.
Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”) that governed the worker’s employment, an employee could not be terminated for medical reasons unless a majority of three physicians agree “that there has been a deterioration in physical condition which prevents the Employee from performing [her] regular work.” Here, the employee-approved physician and the employer-approved physician disagreed, but the “tie-breaking” physician selected by the parties agreed that the worker should not return to work. After filing a union grievance, the union challenged the mining company’s refusal to let the worker return to work, but an arbitrator denied the grievance based solely on the contractual language of the CBA cited above.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia granted summary judgment to the mining company on all of the worker’s claims. The court concluded that the worker failed to satisfy the nexus requirement to establish a prima facie case of retaliatory termination for filing a workers’ compensation case, and that the worker was unable to show that an inference existed demonstrating the filing of the workers’ compensation case was a significant factor in the company’s decision to terminate her. The court also granted summary judgment to the company on the worker’s claims under the West Virginia Human Rights Act and her claim that terminating her because osteoporosis prevented her from returning to work was a practice that had a disparate impact on women.
