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Flint Construction Co. v. Hall12/30/2004
int argues that Hall has not produced any evidence indicating that Flint's stated reason for his discharge (that he was fired because of his record of unexcused absences from work and his presence at casinos on workdays) was pretextual. Flint insists that by presenting evidence of its legitimate reason for discharging Hall, it has rebutted any inference of retaliation raised by Hall's initial showing. Flint further argues that because it presented evidence of Hall's sporadic attendance at work, coupled with evidence of his regular attendance at gambling casinos and frequent absences despite infrequent medical appointments, any evidence offered by Hall to rebut Flint's stated basis for his discharge would have been insufficient to allow the jury to conclude that his worker's compensation claim was the sole basis for his discharge.
We disagree. As this Court stated in Culbreth, supra:
"Alabama's workers' compensation laws should be liberally construed in favor of the employee in order to advance and effectuate their beneficent purposes. If we were to say that, as a matter of law, the reason given by [the employer] is a conclusively legitimate reason, the beneficent purposes of ยง -5-11.1 would be significantly undermined. An employer could almost always say either 'we hired someone to take your place,' or 'we no longer have enough business to continue your employment.' Thus, we think a jury question is presented as to whether [the employer's] asserted reason is a legitimate one or only a pretext."
599 So. 2d at 1123 (citation omitted). As previously noted, Hall presented evidence challenging the credibility of the decision-makers' testimony. The issue of Hall's allegedly gambling when he should have been working is illustrative of the credibility challenges presented to the jury for resolution. The decision-makers testified that discovering that Hall had been at a gambling casino when he was absent from work was the "straw that broke the camel's back." Despite the professed importance of that discovery, however, none of the decision-makers mentioned gambling or casinos in their depositions in response to questions that should have elicited such testimony. Furthermore, although JoAnne Jacob testified that she mentioned to Grams in 1997 that she had seen Hall at the casino, she also testified that no one questioned her further about the incident until long after Hall's discharge had taken place.
In addition to the foregoing evidence, the jury also could have considered evidence indicating the use of Hall's casino player's card, relied upon by Flint to show when Hall was present at the casino, did not necessarily reflect Hall's presence there, but often reflected the presence of his wife or his daughter. Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to Hall, the non-movant, as we are required to do, Waddell & Reed, Inc. v. United Investors Life Ins. Co., 875 So. 2d 1143 (Ala. 2003), the jury could have concluded that Flint relied upon Hall's casino attendance after the fact to bolster its pretextual reason to explain his discharge--his poor attendance at work.
Furthermore, the jury could have concluded that no one at Flint ever criticized Hall about his absences from work and that he did not know that Flint considered those absences sufficiently problematic to be a ground for his discharge. Indeed, at the time of the discharge, Flint told Hall only that he was being discharged because it had no work for him. Additionally, the jury had before it the various reasons Flint provided at various times for Hall's discharge in June 1997--to the Georgia Department of Labor, in deposition testimony, and at trial. The jury could have inferred from the fact that Flint'
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