Causal Connection Between Workplace Accident and Injury
February 23, 2015
The employer appealed an award of workers compensation benefits to an employee who claimed to have been injured on the job. This case is Giant Food LLC v. Wu, No. 1393-12-4, 2013 WL 793352 (Va. App. Mar. 5, 2013).
Wu was working as a cashier at Giant Food when she took a break. On her way to the bathroom, her purse caught on a merchandise hook hanging from a shelf. Wu lost her balance and fell. She was taken to the hospital, complaining of pain in her left knee, arm, and shoulder. An x-ray of her arm showed a fracture of her left humerus.
After returning to work, Wu continued to have pain in her knee and a limited active range of motion. A doctor diagnosed her with a left distal radius fracture but did release her to full duty work. However, Wu did not return to work; instead, she filed for workers compensation benefits. The deputy workers comp commissioner denied benefits to Wu, finding that her injuries did not arise out of her employment, but on appeal, the full commission reversed the denial. The commission stated that the injuries arose out of Wu's employment because a causal connection existed between her workplace and her injuries since her employment placed her in the aisle, and in walking to the bathroom, Wu had to maneuver around a cart and then confronted a workplace hazard, the shelf hook. The employer appealed this decision to the Court of Appeals of Virginia, Alexandria.
On appeal, the employer alleged that the commission erred in finding that the claimant sustained a compensable injury by accident. The court noted that for an injury to be compensable under the Virginia workers compensation act, the claimant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the injury arose out of and in the course of employment; the phrase “arising out of” refers to the origin or cause of the injury. The court also noted that Virginia adheres to the actual risk test to determine whether an injury arose out of employment wherein there is apparent to the rational mind upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury. The court said that an injury does not arise out of the employment when it cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and comes from a hazard to which the workers would have been equally exposed apart from the employment. In other words, the causative danger must be peculiar to the work and not common to the neighborhood.
In this instance, Wu fell because her purse was caught on a hook on the merchandise shelf in the store aisle. The court found that the commission determined as a matter of fact that the hook was a hazard peculiar to the workplace. The court said it could not disturb this factual determination because it was supported by evidence in the record. The commission was entitled to conclude that the hook, located on a shelf, was peculiar to the workplace and not common to the neighborhood. Accordingly, the court ruled that the commission did not err in holding that Wu's injury arose out of her employment. The commission's opinion was affirmed.
Editor's Note: With this opinion, the Court of Appeals of Virginia offered a discussion of the meaning of “arising out of and in the course of the employment.” The fulfillment of this phrase is essential to coverage under the state's workers compensation act. The facts of the accident led the workers compensation commission to hold that the injury to the worker did indeed arise out of and in the course of employment, and the court upheld this finding.