The trial court recently sustained our objection to an employer's motion for summary judgment in a workers' compensation retaliation case. Our client was seriously injured on the job. He then exercised his rights under Connecticut's Workers' Compensation Act. The injury caused him to go out on workers' compensation. While out on comp, he sufficiently recovered from his injury so that he regained the ability to go back to his job. When he tried to return to work , the employer claimed that there was no job to return to. Yet, the employer had an active job posting online for our client's job position. The online job posting and the timing of the posting seriously undermines the credibility of the employer's claim that our client's job had been eliminated.
This case serves a a remainder that when an employer claims job position elimination as the explanation for the termination of employment, an online search needs to be performed. The search will sometimes reveal that the supposedly eliminated job position is actually posted online as being open. When evidence exists to prove that the employer's official explanation for the termination is false, such evidence goes a very long way in proving that the real reason for the termination was an unlawful one.