Two employee retaliation cases made workers compensation headlines in 2018, as employers were accused of punishing employees for reporting unsafe conditions or injuries.

In March, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered the Boston-based airline companies Jet Logistics Inc. and New England Life Flight Inc., doing business as Boston MedFlight, to reinstate a pilot and pay him $233,616 in back wages and other costs after he was fired for complaining about what he believed were violations of Federal Aviation Administration regulations.

The pilot was stationed at an Air Force Base in December 2015 when he expressed to his employer his concerns over whether a new scheduling policy would provide pilots with required FAA rest time. A month later he contacted the FAA to file a complaint and was terminated in March 2016 after he declined two flight assignments because he believed he had not been given the time to rest mandated by regulation.

One month prior, in February, a federal judge in Chicago ruled against an insurance company’s summary judgment in a suit filed by a former employee fired after an 11-month, unresolved workers comp claim.

In 2013, Timothy Buhe was working as a claims adjuster for Lincoln, Rhode Island-based Amica Mutual Insurance Co. when he fell off a roof while investigating a homeowner’s claim and suffered injuries to his lower limbs and shoulder, requiring several surgeries and rehabilitation.

His employer began contacting him in October of that year asking when he planned to return to work. Mr. Buhe told his employer that he needed more medical treatment and was “confused” by the company policy on disability leave.

He was subsequently fired after the company’s comp insurer found out he was the owner of a mortgage business, a side business he claimed was run by other personnel and that his employer knew about.

The judge ruled that “a reasonable jury could conclude that the real reason for plaintiff’s termination was not the violation of company policy but the fact that plaintiff had filed a workers compensation claim against defendant.”