Action Filed Under NJ’s Discrimination Law Not Barred by Exclusive Remedy Rule
The Supreme Court of New Jersey, examining the intersection between the state’s Worker’s Compensation Act (WCA) and its Law Against Discrimination (LAD), held that a teacher’s LAD claim alleging that her employer had failed to accommodate her pre-existing disability was not barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the WCA since the two statutes could easily be harmonized and were not in direct conflict [Richter v. Oakland Bd. of Educ., 2021 N.J. LEXIS 548 (June 8, 2021)]. That the plaintiff teacher had sought and received workers’ compensation benefits for her injuries did not work to bar her LAD claim.
Background
Plaintiff, a longtime type 1 diabetic and teacher, experienced a hypoglycemic event in a classroom. She sustained serious and permanent life-altering injuries. Plaintiff sought and recovered workers’ compensation benefits for her injuries. She then filed the instant action under New Jersey’s LAD [N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -49], alleging that her employer had failed to accommodate her pre-existing disability.
After various proceedings in lower courts, the Supreme Court of New Jersey granted defendants’ petition for certification on two issues:
- whether the plaintiff was required to establish an adverse employment action—such as a demotion, termination, or other similarly recognized adverse employment action—to be able to proceed with an LAD failure-to-accommodate disability claim; and
- whether plaintiff’s claim was barred by the exclusive remedy provision of the state’s WCA because the plaintiff recovered workers’ compensation benefits.
The discussion herein is limited to the second issue.
Two Separate Statutory Schemes
The Court observed that the parties’ positions pitted two statutory schemes—the LAD and the WCA—against one another. Both were remedial in nature. The Court noted that the LAD’s worthy purpose was no less than eradication of the “cancer of discrimination” in society, and to that end, the LAD was given liberal construction. Noting that the appeal focused on the LAD’s damages provision, the Court indicated that in 1990, the Legislature amended the LAD to provide for a right to a jury trial and punitive damages. Further, N.J.S.A. 10:5-13 was amended to add common law remedies for an LAD statutory violation. Referring to the statutes, the Court stressed that the Legislative history of the 1990 amendments made clear that the Legislature’s intent was to reinforce the point that the LAD supplements the common law.
Legislative Schemes Should be Harmonized
The Court noted that an overriding principle of statutory construction compelled that every effort be made to harmonize legislative schemes enacted by the Legislature. The Court indicated the WCA was in place when the LAD was enacted, and the Legislature certainly would have been aware of the WCA when, in 1990, it added the common law remedies to the LAD and directed that the LAD supplement those remedies.
The Court pointed out that in Schmidt v. Smith, 294 N.J. Super. 569, 585-86 (App. Div. 1996), aff’d, 155 N.J. 44 (1998), the Appellate Division relied in part on the 1990 amendments in concluding that the WCA was not the exclusive means for managing sexual harassment in the workplace and that an LAD action could be pursued notwithstanding the WCA.
No Preemption by WCA
The Court said that in keeping with Schmidt‘s import, the WCA’s exclusive remedy provision did not attach to the plaintiff’s LAD claim. The WCA and the LAD operated to fulfill different purposes, both protective of workers in the workplace. The statutes could function cumulatively and complementarily; they are not in tension, much less in conflict in the instant case. The Court said that the two statutory schemes, harmonized, operated to prevent double recovery. With double recovery averted, there was no possible conflict. Thus, the “full-throated pursuit of remedies” available under the LAD for actionable disability discrimination could proceed unencumbered by the WCA exclusivity bar.