MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Legal Newsline) - An Alabama widow, Keishana Jenkins, and her three children were recently denied Workers’ Compensation benefits when an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that awarded the benefits after Grady Jenkins, an employee of the city of Birmingham, was murdered on the job.
In a Dec. 11 ruling, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals sent to case back to the Jefferson Circuit Court to determine whether the murder was in any way connected to the job or was personally motivated.
“Unlike the law in many other jurisdictions,” the appeals court said, “Alabama law does not provide for a presumption that an injury received by an employee during the course of the employment also arises out of the employment, which is often the basis for awarding compensation for injuries resulting from unexplained assaults in those jurisdictions.”
In November 2017, Jenkins, 51, was shot dead while cutting grass with a riding mower in the backyard of abandoned home in the Wylam neighborhood of Birmingham. A fellow employee, Michael Reese, who was working in the front yard testified in deposition that he heard the gunshots coming from the back of the house, but because of the sound of the mower could not hear if a conversation, or argument, preceded the shots.
The murder has yet to be solved; robbery was apparently not the motive as $700 was found in Jenkins’ wallet.
Keishana Jenkins filed a complaint against the city seeking WC benefits. The Jefferson Circuit Court denied the city’s motion for summary judgment and awarded the benefits.
The Court of Civil Appeals agreed with the trial court’s decision to deny the city’s summary judgment motion, and agreed with the court’s refusal to strike evidence contained in depositions, including that of former city detective, Sgt. Talana Brown - her comments on the crime rate in the city were inadmissible hearsay, the city had argued.
But on the matter of the benefits the appeals court noted: “To prove legal causation, a party seeking Workers' Compensation benefits must show that the performance of the duties of the employment exposed the employee ‘to a danger or risk materially in excess of that to which people not so employed are exposed [ordinarily in their everyday lives].’”
Later in the ruling the court added: “A motion for a summary judgment may be granted only when the undisputed material facts show that the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. In this case, neither side has proven a right to a judgment as a matter of law; instead, they have shown only that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to the compensability of the employee's death resulting from an assault on the employee.”
The appeals court reversed the summary judgment in favor of the dependents and remanded the case for a trial on the merits.