Dean Denied Workers’ Compensation for Injury From ‘Walking and Turning’ in Hallway

A community college dean who was injured when she fell after she turned in a hallway to address a colleague is not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, the Virginia Court of Appeals has ruled.

Mary Pat O’Brien, dean of nursing for the Northern Virginia Community College, unsuccessfully argued that the distraction of speaking to her colleague caused her to fall and that no further “potential hazard” in the workplace was necessary for her to recover.

But the Court of Appeals found that the injury was not compensable because the dean did not meet her burden of proving that her injury arose out of her employment, including failing to show there was any environmental factor in combination with the colleague’s distraction that caused her to fall. The court upheld a denial of benefits by the Workers’ Compensation Commission (WCC) and a deputy commissioner.

“Simply put, her fall was not caused by her employment but rather presented an equal risk to any person walking inattentively down the hallway. The mere acts of walking and turning were not risks of employment,” the court concluded.

As O’Brien walked down the hallway at the college on the way to a meeting, a colleague spoke to her about how to get to the meeting. She turned to answer, her right “foot got stuck,” and she “fell out” of her left shoe, into a wall and onto the floor, sustaining serious injuries. At the time of her fall, she was carrying a computer and paperwork for use at the meeting.

O’Brien applied for workers’ compensation benefits, alleging that she fell when she was distracted and turned, and her shoe stuck to the floor. The college defended against the claim, arguing that the accident did not arise out of O’Brien’s employment.

A video of the fall was in the record.

A WCC deputy commissioner denied the claim. concluding that O’Brien failed to show that her accident and injuries arose out of her employment. The deputy commissioner found that the record “suggested” that she “took a mis-step while engaged in the simple act of turning.” The deputy commissioner acknowledged that O’Brien was “perhaps distracted” by the colleague’s inquiry but found “there was no environmental condition of the claimant’s employment, when combined with the alleged distraction, that caused, or contributed to her to fall.”

On O’Brien’s request for review, the WCC affirmed the deputy commissioner’s denial of benefits and the determination that her injuries did not arise out of her employment.

The WCC acknowledged that O’Brien’s action of turning to talk to her co-worker could have been a distraction but found that doing so was not a risk of employment because turning to talk to someone is “ubiquitous human behavior.” The WCC said that the distraction argument failed because it was not in concert with anything in the work environment to cause her injury. The WCC concluded that a “common motion,” such as turning to talk to someone, is not a “risk of employment.”

The WCC also discounted O’Brien’s claim that “awkwardness due to holding papers and a computer under her left arm” contributed to her fall. The WCC said there was no evidence that holding the work items was causally connected to her fall or that “that the fall would have been avoided or arrested had both of O’Brien’s hands been free.”

The WCC concluded that it was “equally plausible that the claimant fell because her foot became dislodged from her shoe,” which did not have a heel strap, or, in the alternative, that she “entangled her feet as she attempted to turn.”

The Court of Appeals agreed that the circumstance of a co-worker talking to O’Brien was unrelated to a hazard in the workplace and affirmed the WCC denial of benefits.

Topics Workers' Compensation Talent