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39 Cap. U. L. Rev. 961 (2011)
Employees Should Be Treated Fairly: A Plea to Change the Workers' Compensation Retaliation Statute

handle is hein.journals/capulr39 and id is 969 raw text is: EMPLOYEES SHOULD BE TREATED FAIRLY: A PLEA TO CHANGE THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION RETALIATION STATUTE MICHAL KUKREJA I. INTRODUCTION A. Tom, the Coal Miner' Tom works in the coalmine in New Athenean, Ohio. He is employed as a mechanic. He works for Star Energy, Inc., one of the largest coal producers in the United States. This week he works the midnight shift. To prepare for his shift, he goes to bed after he arrives home from church on Sunday and sleeps until 7:00 p.m. It is dark outside as he wakes up. He eats dinner at home and then dresses for work by putting on steel-toe/steel- metatarsal boots, jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. He normally picks up the rest of his work gear at his locker at work. His home is forty-five miles away from the job site. Once he arrives at the coal mining site, he picks up his hard hat with a light attached and his mask. The hard hat weighs over one pound.2 When Tom first began this job as a mine mechanic, his neck ached constantly because of the hard hat's weight. During his first few weeks, he found it difficult to turn his head to hear noises. His boots already made it difficult to walk and pick up each leg. They are also Copyright C 2011, Michal Kukreja. . I could not have written this article without the loving support from my husband, John. His excitement about this article fueled me with the energy to write it. Thank you to the coal miner who shared with me his fascinating stories, only some of which were recorded for this article. Lastly, my sincere appreciation goes out to the legal professionals, including Professor Stacey Blasko, who took the time out of their very busy schedules to help me produce a better article. Any errors are solely my responsibility. 1 Part L.A of this article is an illustrative hypothetical about a coal miner working in Ohio. The author created the story after personally interviewing a coal miner in February of 2010. For a recording of this interview, see Interview with Coal Miner, in Columbus, Ohio (Feb. 16 & 18, 2010) (on file with the author). 2 For an interesting, brief history of the hard hat from a manufacturer's point of view, see From the Hard-Boiled Hat to Today's Skull Bucket: A History of Hard Hats, BULLARD, http://www.bullard.com/V3/products/head face/head protection/HardHat History/ (last visited Mar. 30, 2011).

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