Holden: Collateral Estoppel Does Not Violate Proper to Trial by Jury| Staff Compensation Information

By Joshua G. Holden

Wednesday, December 23, 2020 | 70 | 0 | min read

On December 11th, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the collateral peg did not violate the constitutional right to a jury trial. This finding was based on a retaliation review by the Shelby County Circuit Court of a motion for a summary judgment in favor of the employer.

Joshua G. Holden

In this case, according to the employer, the employee was dismissed for misconduct. The termination took place after filing an employee compensation claim. The worker eventually declared unemployment and the city defended his claim, claiming that he was not entitled to unemployment because he had been fired for misconduct.

It was clear from the records that the worker and the employer attended a hearing where both parties presented evidence and obtained testimony from an administrative officer. The unemployment authority’s original decision was that the worker was dismissed for misconduct. The employee appealed this decision on multiple levels but ultimately chose not to proceed and appeal to the Circuit Court.

Instead, the employee changed his complaint in the case of employee compensation to introduce a retaliation right shortly before the employment office’s final decision. The employer submitted a summary assessment request, which was approved but canceled due to service issues.

The summary judgment was resumed and ultimately rejected by the court, which found it was not ripe for a decision at that point. The discovery proceeded and the employer eventually renewed its request for summary assessment. The clerk objected, alleging that he did not have adequate opportunity to bring the matter to bear and that the application of a collateral tie would violate his constitutional right to a jury trial.

The Supreme Court ruled that the same parties must be identified in both cases for the collateral link to apply in such cases. In addition, the parties must have sufficient opportunity to clarify the issues on which the collateral link is based.

The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the worker had ample opportunity to argue that he had been wrongly dismissed in his unemployment case. This included the ability to submit evidence and call witnesses to testify.

Even if the employee did not take his opportunity to sue the matter, a collateral link could still be used. The decision at the unemployment hearing that he was fired for wrongdoing therefore prevented him from arguing now that he was fired only because he was claiming a claim for workers’ compensation.

The Supreme Court then responded to the worker’s argument that the use of the collateral link in cases where the previous decision was only administrative and not decided by a jury was a violation of his constitutional rights. The Alabama Supreme Court found that several other courts, including the United States Supreme Court, had failed to address the issue.

The Alabama Supreme Court cited cases where it was found that the courts did not hesitate to take legal action when an administrative agency was acting in a judicial capacity to resolve disputed factual issues involving the same parties. B & B Hardware Inc. v Hargis Industries Inc., in which the United States Supreme Court stated, “The court has already ruled that the right to trial does not negate the exclusive effect of a judgment, even if the judgment is dated judicial court registered. “

The Alabama Supreme Court found that the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Seventh Amendment does not prevent the competent courts from making judgments that have an exclusive effect. Therefore, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that there would be no reason why the administrative process should not have the same exclusive effect that a court decision would have if the administrative process in question had the feature of a decision.

The court found that the rationale for this was that the administrative procedure in which the employee was involved contained the essential elements of case law, including adequate notification of those bound by case law and the law on behalf of the Party to provide evidence and legal arguments to support their claims and / or disprove evidence and arguments of the opposing party.

As a result, the Alabama Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the collateral peg would continue to apply and would not violate the constitutional right to a jury trial if an employer were to take the decision in an unemployment hearing to preclude retaliation under the Workers’ Compensation Act .

My 2 cents

As we noted in previous blog posts, decisions in hearings on unemployment can be beneficial in an employee compensation case that involves a retaliatory lawsuit. For this reason, we recommend that all employers secure legal representation and participate fully in the hearing on unemployment in order to make a favorable decision.

Joshua G. Holden is a partner at Fish Nelson & Holden LLC, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. This entry is republished with permission from the company’s Alabama Workers’ Comp Blawg.