Release Date: 9/5/2019
Venue: Springfield, MO
Plot Summary: Commission affirms a denial of benefits that claimant failed to prove a wrist injury arose from an identifiable risk source when claimant tripped over a parking lot island when claimant had experienced a equal exposure to same island and risk of falling in her in non-occupational life.
Inj. No. 17-0110830 2019 MO WCLR LEXIS 65
https://labor.mo.gov/sites/labor/files/decisions_wc/NugentPauline17-011083090519.pdf
Cast:
Fischer, ALJ
Alberhasky
Harris
Bang
Mullins
Comments:
287.020.2 provides....
(2) An injury shall be deemed to arise out of and in the course of the employment only if:
(a) It is reasonably apparent, upon consideration of all the circumstances, that the accident is the prevailing factor in causing the injury; and
(b) It does not come from a hazard or risk unrelated to the employment to which workers would have been equally exposed outside of and unrelated to the employment in normal nonemployment life.
"In this case, there is no evidence that Employee was carrying or wearing any item related to her employment. She testified the only thing she was carrying was her handbag, which contained personal items....."
"Furthermore, the evidence establishes that Employee when injured was walking in a parking lot that she walks in on occasions in her normal non-employment life. In fact Employee had, just moments before her alleged work related fall, walked in the very same parking lot, with the very same parking island in her normal non-employment life when she went to the United State Post Office located in the Glen Isle Center on personal business. Employee also testified that since the fall in February 2017, she has been in the same parking lot on personal non-employment business
Employee's own testimony establishes that she is routinely exposed to similar parking islands in similar parking lots that she frequents in her normal non-employment life."
The cases arises on unique facts in which claimant identifies an exposure to an identical hazard at work and away from work. There is further analysis that the cause did not flow from any identifiable hazard or defect of the island.
What's it worth?
Denied.
