Your employee is injured when he falls down the stairs atwork. The injury seems compensable, right? But what if he was using the stairsto go out to lunch? Goofing around with his colleagues when he fell? What if“work” was actually his home?
Questions like these (where, when, and why an injury occurred) help determine whether an employee was in the “course and scope” of employment at the time of injury. Generally, injuries that occur within the course and scope of employment are compensable in PA.
Caselaw tells us that an injury occurs within the course andscope of employment if an employee is injured while furthering the employer’sbusiness, regardless of whether the employee is on the employer’s premises whenthe injury occurs. “Furthering the employer’s business” is very fact-specificand hotly debated in court. An employee can still be acting in furtherance ofbusiness if he temporarily departs from his work duties.
For instance, in The Baby’s Room v. WCAB (Pa. Cmwlth. 2004),an employee delivering furniture was injured while jumping to reach a basketball rim in a customer’s driveway. Within the course and scope of employment? Logic says no, but the court found that he was because such action constituted a “short, inconsequential departure from work.”
Other jumps may not be so “short” and “inconsequential.” InPenn State Univ. v. WCAB (Pa.Cmwlth. 2011), an employee’s decision to jump down a flight of stairs on the employer’s premises while on an unpaid lunch break was deemed not in furtherance of the employer’s business as (a) the employer did not encourage the action, (b) jumping down a flight of stairs did not constitute furthering a specific interest of the employer, and (c) jumping from a flight of stairs was not necessary to maintain an employment skill. Drawing a distinction between this case and Baby’s Room, the Penn State court reasoned that the employee’s “premeditated” and “inherently high-risk” actions were“wholly foreign to his employment.” Apparently, in the Baby’s Room, jumping up to touch a basketball rim was not.
In most cases, an employee administering to personal comforts does not depart from furthering business affairs. In VerizonPennsylvania, Inc. v. WCAB (Pa.Cmwlth. 2006), an employee was injured descending the stairs to her home office after an “OJ break” upstairs. Grabbing a drink upstairs did not constitute abandonment of employment; speaking on the telephone with her supervisor while descending the stairs was in furtherance of her employer’s business.
Crazily enough, an injury need not occur while an employee is acting in furtherance of the employer's business to be compensable; injuries occurring on the employer’s premises may still be compensable even if the employee was not acting in furtherance of the employer’s business.
Course and scope can be tricky, but the attorneys at Carpenter, McCadden & Lane are happy to help!
