 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Frame v. Resort Services Inc.2/2/2004
Heard January 14, 2004
REVERSED AND REMANDED
Resort Services Incorporated (RSI), employer, and Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, carrier, appeal an order by the circuit court which adopted the findings of the Workers' Compensation Commission and granted Ted Frame, employee, full benefits for mental illness under the South Carolina Workers' Compensation Act. We reverse and remand.
FACTS/PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Ted Frame began his employment with RSI, a commercial laundry business, as a route sales driver in March 1985. After establishing himself as a "jack of all trades" and an "excellent employee," Frame was promoted to route sales manager sometime between 1991 and 1993 and again to production manager in 1997. By the time he ended his employment with RSI, a family owned business run by the five sons of founder Jerry Reeves, Frame was known within the company as the sixth Reeves brother, having many of the same responsibilities and ostensibly the authority of a co-owner.
Both Frame and RSI agree that he had a very difficult and stress inducing job throughout his employment with RSI. As a route sales driver, he would often work up to fourteen hours a day, and it was not uncommon to put in sixty to seventy hours a week. In both the route sales manager and production manager positions, his responsibilities were increased and the amount of time his job required remained around sixty to seventy-five hours a week, depending on the season, often working weekends. Furthermore, his level of job-related stress was aggravated by what he perceived to be management's continual incompetence, violations of law (Department of Transportation and environmental regulations), conflicting orders, disregard of proper chain of command, overt racism, and sexual misconduct on the part of some of his five bosses. Frame professed that many of the circumstances which eventually led to his heightened level of job-related stress, particularly racist remarks by management, reporting and receiving conflicting orders from multiple bosses and having to rush between several different areas of the business, had been present for about five years before the date he left the employ of the company.
Throughout his fifteen years of employment, especially in the last five years, Frame had feelings of frustration, helplessness and outrage at the practices of his supervisors. He testified to several instances where he fired employees for violations of the company's drug and alcohol policy, which he was charged to enforce, only to have the Reeves brothers rehire them a month later. There were occasions when truck maintenance, hauling practices, and the plant's compliance with environmental regulations were responded to with perceived apathy by the Reeves brothers. Frame believed this rose to the level of a violation of law. His dissatisfaction with his job was exacerbated throughout his employment by feelings that its demands were destroying his family life.
On September 9, 1999, an outside vendor of paper goods arrived at RSI with a delivery. Two boxes of paper towels, damaged during delivery, were deemed below the quality standards of the company and were removed from the bill. The driver of the truck, expressing his intention of throwing the products away, instead gave the products to the employees of RSI. One employee, driver Kevin Moore, an outstanding employee by RSI's own testimony, took some of the towels home with him at the end of his shift.
Frame arrived to work the following morning to find Michelle Johnson, a purchasing agent for the company and Frame's subordinate, loudly accusing Moore of being a thief. Frame attempted to explain to Johnson t
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 South Carolina Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|