Cases

Claimant had a work-from-home arrangement with her employer.  She tripped over her dog while reaching for a coffee cup in her kitchen.  The injury occurred during working hours.  The JCC determined that the injury was compensable.  On appeal, court reversed determining that the claimant's employment did not contribute to the risk that the claimant would trip over her dog and therefore, the JCC erred in finding this to be a compensable accident.

In determining the compensability of this case, the question was whether the claimant's employment (wherever it is performed, at home or in an office) exposed the claimant to conditions which substantially contributed to the risk of injury.  In this case, the relevant risk was that the claimant might trip over her dog while reaching for a coffee cup in her kitchen.  The court determined that that risk existed whether the claimant was at home working or whether she was at home not working. It existed before the claimant took her job and it would exist after her employment ended.  Because the risk did not arise out of the employment, court reversed JCC's award of benefits.  On appeal, a review de novo of the JCC's application of the law to the undisputed facts in this case was the basis for appellate review.  

In order to be compensable under the workers' compensation law, the accident must: 1) arise out of work performed, and 2) be within the course and scope of employment.  Accidents occur in the course and scope of employment when they occur in the period of the claimant's employment, at a place where the employee would reasonably be, while fullfilling his or her duties.  In determining of such injuries were in the course and scope of the claimant's employment, there must be a showing: the injury was during work hours, the place where the accident occurred was where the claimant should reasonably be and that at the time of the injury, she was in a permissible "comfort" break. 

However, the issue in this case was not whether the claimant was in the course and scope of employment at the time of the accident.  The issue in this case was whether the injury arose out of the claimant's employment. Course and scope and arising out of employment are two different issues. Workers' compensation does not cover accidents that occur in the course and scope of an employee's employment but did not arise out of the employment.  Arising out of pertains to occupational causation. The arising out of limitation requires that the risk that caused the claimant's accident and injury must be work related and the employment exposed the claimant to conditions that would substantially contribute to the risk of injury and to which the claimant would not normally be exposed during non-employment life. 

The employment must in some way contribute to an increased risk of injury peculiar  to that employment.  Court determined that for any injury to be compensable under the Workers' Compensation Act, it must "arise out of" the employment; there must be (as the statute states) occupational causation.  Had the claimant in this instance suffered an injury from a risk her employment introduced in the workplace (such as repetitive stress injuries from typing all day as one potential example), the accident would have been compensable.  The court specifically stated that the finding in this case did not mean that only accidents are compensable while the employee is actively working in her work at the time of the accident.  An accident on a break for example might still arise out of employment where the employment necessarily exposed the claimant to conditions that would substantially contribute to the risk of injury.  In this instance, the claimant's trip over her dog in her own kitchen while reaching for a cup was not a risk that her employment introduced into the claimant's workplace.  If the injury does not contribute to the risk of the accident resulting in injury, the workers' compensation law does not require industry to contribute to the cost of injury.  Dissenting opinions.