Court hears La-Z-Boy employees' suit

Was La-Z-Boy Inc. being a lazy employer or a prudent manager?

After hearing oral arguments Thursday, the Utah Supreme Court must determine if several former employers of La-Z-Boy can sue the recliner company for allegedly firing them after they claimed workers' compensation benefits.

The ruling could impact some of Utah's largest companies. According to the Labor Commission of Utah, an estimated 19 percent of Utah companies, many of them Utah's largest, fund their own workers' compensation programs rather than retain insurance. Those companies employ an estimated 20 percent to 25 percent of Utah's total work force.

La-Z-Boy, a publicly traded company based in Monroe, Mich., employs about 1,000 people in its Tremonton manufacturing plant in Box Elder County.

Eight employees filed a federal lawsuit against the company, many charging they were fired after claiming workers' compensation for injuries they sustained on the job. In some cases, employees say they were terminated by La-Z-Boy before they could receive medical care, such as surgery.

"La-Z-Boy engaged in a campaign to delay and deny employees medical benefits and to fire those employees who had severe injuries requiring expensive medical treatment and/or who were likely to be injured in the future," attorney Ralph Chamness wrote in his brief to the Supreme Court.

Chamness noted La-Z-Boy employed its own nurse and retained its own physician to review employee claims and that both were pressured by the company to "take a hostile attitude towards the employees" and deny treatment of injured workers.

By delaying or refusing medical treatment, the company used its policy of firing employees who did not return to their normal job after 120 days, Chamness states. "La-Z-Boy also required employees who had surgery to come back to work for at least an hour on the day of their surgery, and each day after. . . . This policy meant that La-Z-Boy would not have to report the lost time due to work-related injuries to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration."

Part of the legal puzzle in this case is that Utah's laws are silent on whether a fired employee can sue for damages under the state's Workers' Compensation Act. All the law states is that employers are required to carry some form of insurance, but it does not address if employees can sue under the statute if they believe they were fired for exercising their right to make a claim.