## Facts

- Merced Martines sustained a compensable work-related injury to his left foot while employed by Worley & Sons Construction.
- After treatment, Martines’s physician released him to return to work with restrictions.
- The employer offered Martines light-duty work as a delivery truck driver within the physician’s restrictions.
- Martines agreed and reported to work, but the employer requested a Georgia driver’s license and documentation of lawful presence before he could drive a company truck.
- Martines disclosed he could not obtain a Georgia driver’s license because he had entered the United States unlawfully.
- Martines left the employer’s office and did not return to the offered job.
- Two days later, Martines saw his physician, who certified him unable to return to work for three weeks.
- An ALJ awarded temporary total disability benefits, finding (among other things) the job was not suitable because Martines lacked a driver’s license; the Board affirmed.
- The superior court reversed, concluding the Board applied an incorrect legal standard and that Martines failed to show a justified refusal; Martines appealed.

## Issues

1. Under OCGA § 34-9-240, whether an injured worker’s refusal of medically suitable employment is “justified” when the worker cannot legally perform the job due to an inability to obtain a required license resulting from the worker’s voluntary conduct.
2. Whether the Board erred by treating the offered job as unsuitable based on the claimant’s lack of a driver’s license where the job otherwise met the physician’s restrictions.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed the superior court’s reversal of the benefits award.
- The court held the offered delivery-driver position was medically suitable because it fell within the physician’s restrictions.
- The court held Martines’s refusal was not justified as a matter of law because it was based on a legal inability to perform the job arising from his own voluntary conduct (unlawful entry preventing licensure), not from the work injury, lack of skill, or physical incapacity.
- The court agreed that Martines did not carry his burden to demonstrate a justified refusal once suitable work was offered.

## Legal Principles

- Under OCGA § 34-9-240, an employee who unjustifiably refuses suitable employment may have workers’ compensation benefits suspended.
- “Suitable employment” is assessed by whether the offered work is consistent with the treating physician’s restrictions and the employee’s physical capacity.
- A refusal based on legal ineligibility to perform the work is not “justified” when the legal barrier results from the claimant’s voluntary, non-injury-related conduct rather than from the compensable injury or a lack of skill or physical ability.
- When an employer offers medically suitable work, the claimant bears the burden to prove that refusal of the work was justified.

## Conclusion

Because the employer offered work within Martines’s medical restrictions and his only asserted barrier to performing it was a self-caused legal inability to obtain a required driver’s license, his refusal was unjustified under OCGA § 34-9-240, and the reversal of temporary total disability benefits was affirmed.


Martines v. Worley & Sons Constr., 278 Ga. App. 26, 628 S.E.2d 113 (Ga. Ct. App. 2006)