United States: West Virginia Retaliatory Discharge Action May Not Be Removed to Federal Court

Because a retaliatory discharge action was “integrally related” to the West Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act, it could not be removed to federal court under 28 U.S.C.S. § 1445(c), held the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. The defendant former employer contended that the retaliatory discharge action was similar to a deliberate intent, Mandolidis-type of dispute, which the Fourth Circuit had determined in 1995 could be removed. The district court noted, however, that in the Fourth Circuit decision cited by the defendant, the court had refrained from hold that retaliatory discharge actions were barred from removal. The district court stressed that in dicta, the Fourth Circuit had said there was a “sharp distinction” between a retaliatory discharge claim and a Mandolidis claim. The district court added that an action for retaliatory discharge was integrally related to the just and smooth operation of the workers’ compensation system, whereas a Mandolidis claim had no relationship to providing no-fault benefits.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Prince v. Professional Transp., Inc., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 203341 (S.D. W.Va. Nov. 22, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 104.07.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

Sign up for the free LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation enewsletter at www.lexisnexis.com/wcnews.