Worker convicted of assaulting supervisor entitled to comp

A man who was convicted of assaulting his supervisor is entitled to workers compensation benefits, an Ohio appellate court held Monday.

In State ex rel. Welsh Enterprises Inc. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, the Ohio Court of Appeals, 10th District, Franklin County, affirmed an Ohio Industrial Commission decision after stating it must “swallow” the instinct to overturn the decision because the commission substantiated its view that the worker’s version of events was credible.

Timothy Knight worked in a salvage yard for Steubenville, Ohio-based Welsh Enterprises Inc. In March 2017, he said he was overcome by fumes while spray-painting cars because he did not have respiration equipment and passed out, hitting his head. He returned to work but was fired in September 2017 after he was charged with assaulting his supervisor. He pleaded guilty, was convicted and barred from the employer’s premises for five years.

In April 2018, he filed a workers compensation claim for the March 2017 fume exposure, claiming he suffered from a closed-head injury, acute bronchial asthma as a result to exposure to irritants, traumatic brain injury, adjustment disorder and neurocognitive disorder.

A district hearing officer granted Mr. Knight temporary total disability after finding that Welsh failed to provide “sufficient evidence” as to “when or why” Mr. Knight was terminated. The Ohio Industrial Commission declined to review the decision, but agreed that Mr. Knight, who said he was fired for making a safety complaint and that he pushed his boss in self-defense, was credible. Welsh appealed to a magistrate, arguing that the commission abused its discretion. The magistrate, however, disagreed, and Welsh appealed to the appellate court.

The appellate court affirmed the magistrate’s decision. The court held that despite the circumstances of the case, it was not authorized “to overturn that ruling based on potentially differing credibility assessments” since the commission had evidence to substantiate its view that Mr. Knight was not fired for assaulting his boss, but for some other reason that was not grounds for termination.

“We swallow our instinct to find that the employee voluntarily abandoned his work, as based on facts as we might construe them from the cold record,” said the court.

The court held that as the “exclusive judge of witness credibility, the commission was empowered” to make the call that Mr. Knight’s “plea and conviction were not conclusive proof of assault for civil law purposes.”