Thomas E. Southon v. Oklahoma Tire Recyclers, LLC

Tulsa, Oklahoma employment law lawyers represented the Plaintiff who sued on a wrongful termination theory.

Thomas Southon was employed by Oklahoma Tire Recyclers, LLC ("Employer"). On September 13, 2016, Southon sustained an injury while on the job and filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits. Employer fired Southon less than a month after he suffered the injury. Southon filed an action in the Creek County District Court, alleging Employer terminated him as retaliation for seeking workers' compensation benefits. Southon's petition further requested a declaratory ruling that 85A O.S.Supp. 2013 § 7 is unconstitutional.



Employer moved to dismiss the action, arguing that the Workers' Compensation Commission, and not the district court, has sole jurisdiction over wrongful termination claims involving workers' compensation benefits. The district court judge entered an order sustaining Employer's Motion to Dismiss. Further, the lower court found section 7 did not violate the Oklahoma Constitution. Southon appealed the ruling and we retained the case. We now affirm the district court.





The classification of wrongful termination victims "is determined by the public policy that is offended by the discharge of an employee who is either protected by the public policy or has acted in a way that is consistent with the public policy." MacDonald v. Corporate Integris Health, 2014 OK 10, ¶ 10, 321 P.3d 980, 984. We recently held in MacDonald, that the Oklahoma Anti-Discrimination Act was not a special law even though it created a new class of status-based wrongful termination victims.3 Id. ¶ 4, 321 P.3d at 982. In MacDonald, as in the present case, "plaintiff argue[d] that all victims of wrongful termination are a similarly situated class of tort victims in the same way all victims of negligence" are a similarly situated class. Id. ¶ 5, 321 P.3d at 983. This Court rejected that notion and held that the remedies for status-based and conduct-based wrongful termination need not be commensurate because the remedies are intended to protect different policies. Id. ¶¶ 7, 10, 321 P.3d at 983-84. Accordingly, a class may receive individualized treatment where there is a separate policy reason for doing so.



Southon v. Okla. Tire Recyclers, LLC, 443 P.3d 566 (Okla. 2019)

Southon failed to meet the burden required to establish section 7 is unconstitutional. We therefore hold that 85A O.S.Supp. 2013 § 7 does not violate either article II, sections 7 and 9, or article V, section 46 of the Oklahoma Constitution. Moreover, the remedies provided in section 7 are adequate and preclude Southon from bringing a Burk tort in the district court. We affirm the judgment of the district court dismissing the action against the defendants for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.