Does Workers’ Compensation Cover Injury Caused by Performing a ‘Common Courtesy’?

An employee has been awarded workers’ compensation benefits after being injured when performing a “common courtesy” even though her employer maintains what she did was outside the course and scope of her employment.

The Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission (VWCC) has affirmed benefits for an Abbott Laboratories employee who suffered a cervical spine injury at the company’s national sales conference when she attempted to move her manager’s heavy backpack to another table where she and her team colleagues were sitting.

The VWCC agreed with a deputy commissioner that the claimant’s attempt to move her manager’s (also named Abbott) backpack to their new table was an “exercise of common courtesy and good judgment” to secure and protect the employer’s and Abbott’s belongings, which served the employer’s interests, and thus, was a risk peculiar to the claimant’s employment.

“The claimant’s attempt to bring Abbott’s backpack to their new table was within the scope of her employment. Abbott’s backpack contained her work laptop and various other personal items, including personal notebooks related to work,” the deputy commissioner noted.

The deputy also found that the employee’s action was in keeping with the employer’s code of business conduct which states:

It is our responsibility to protect and use Abbott’s assets, from physical property, like vehicles and computer equipment . . ., with care and ensure their efficient and proper use. We must all use good judgment to ensure that Abbott’s assets are not lost, stolen, misused, or wasted.

The employer did not dispute that the accident caused a cervical spine injury.

However, the company balked at compensation because it said Abbott, the manager, did not have any reason to believe that her backpack was in danger of being stolen. She testified that the claimant was not expected to handle her belongings and she did not ask anybody to handle her backpack. She did acknowledge that securing the backpack could be considered a common courtesy.

The employer contended that it was not the claimant’s job duty or responsibility to handle others’ personal belongings. The employer also challenged the deputy commissioner to explain how the backpack was at risk of theft, loss, or waste when the conference was attended exclusively by the company’s own personnel, and there was security present.

The employer further contended that handling the backpack was not a risk associated with employment, was not a condition of her employment, and was not peculiar to her employment. They argued that the claimant could have “just as easily injured herself lifting a backpack/bag anywhere and at any time.”

The VWCC was not persuaded by the employer’s arguments.

The VWCC noted that claimant was attending the conference at the request of her employer. The district team was encouraged to sit together during the conference. The claimant’s manager instructed her to keep looking for her co-workers while she was out of the room. The claimant found her co-workers, and in order to facilitate the team sitting together and avoid leaving her manager’s belongings unsecured, she attempted to move her manager’s backpack to the new table.

“That this action was a common courtesy rather than a job duty makes it no less incidental to her employment,” the commission stated, calling it “inconsequential” that she was not instructed to move her manager’s backpack,” and adding that the Supreme Court of Virginia has held that the “voluntary” nature of an employee’s action does not defeat her claim for a resulting injury.

The VWCC said it found no error in the deputy commissioner’s finding that the claimant’s injury arose out of and in the course of her employment. “An accident occurs in the ‘course of employment’ when it takes place within the period of employment, at a place where the employee may be reasonably expected to be, and while he is reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment or is doing something that is reasonably incidental thereto,” the VWCC explained.

The commission rejected the employer’s actual risk argument as well. “Under the actual risk test, it matters not that lifting a heavy bag or other item is not an act exclusive to the claimant’s employment. Lifting the backpack was incidental to the claimant’s employment. The claimant testified that the backpack felt heavier than she expected when she attempted to lift it, resulting in feeling an immediate pull in her neck. She described a significant work-related exertion causally related to her employment. The resulting injury therefore arose out of her employment,” the VWCC stated.

Topics Workers' Compensation Talent