Fire Law Blog Fire Service and Public Safety Legal Issues Blog by Curt Varone
An Oklahoma firefighter who was fired following an on-the-job injury has filed a wrongful termination suit.
Robert Adair, who was a Special Operations Officer and Hazmat Director for the Muskogee Fire Department, was terminated March 21, 2014, after his doctor cleared his to return to work from a line-of-duty injury he sustained on March 12, 2012.
Adair’s attorney, Steven Hickman, claims that despite being cleared for duty and passing the city’s fitness for duty requirements, his client was told “quit or we’ll fire you”. He was also quoted as saying:
- “When you get injured, you’re on temporary disability and they can’t fire you during that time.”
- “They have to wait until the case is over. After it was, they called him in and told him since he had filed his Workers’ Comp claim and gotten paid, they were going to terminate him.”
The complaint is rather bare bones, just two pages and seven paragraphs with no identifiable counts. It alleges wrongful termination, constructive termination, a violation of the Oklahoma Workers Compensation Act, and a violation of the Americans with Disability Act. Oddly, it does not explain how the worker’s comp act or the ADA were violated.
Here is a copy of the complaint: Adair v Muskogee
