Galante v. Sandoz

In Galante v. Sandoz, 192 N.J.Super. 403, 470 A.2d 45 (Law Div.1983), aff'd 196 N.J.Super. 568, 483 A.2d 829 (App.Div.1984), the plaintiff was terminated because he had accumulated absences in excess of those allowed by the employer. In that case, seventy-five percent of the employee's absences were attributable to a work-related injury. While plaintiff could not prove retaliation in violation of the workers' compensation statute, he maintained that terminating a worker due to absences caused by work related injuries violated the public policy behind the Worker's Compensation Law. supra. The court disagreed, finding that the Workers Compensation Law is insurance, providing compensation for losses without proof of fault. Id., at 408-409, 470 A.2d 45. It does not entitle workers to have their jobs held for them until they recuperate from work related injuries. Ibid. It would be completely inappropriate in this instance for a court to further encroach into this sensitive area without a clear expression by the legislature. Thus, to expand the breadth of this statute, as the employee would have us do, to preclude the neutral application of an absence control policy by an employer to an employee who was once injured in a work related accident is to confer upon the employee a benefit not contemplated by the legislature; namely unlimited absences from work with impunity. Id., at 409, 470 A.2d 45.