City of Eugene v. McDermed

282 P.3d 947, 250 Or. App. 572, 2012 WL 2405194, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 796
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedJune 27, 2012
Docket0803945; A144661
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 282 P.3d 947 (City of Eugene v. McDermed) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Eugene v. McDermed, 282 P.3d 947, 250 Or. App. 572, 2012 WL 2405194, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 796 (Or. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

HASELTON, C. J.

Employer seeks review of a Workers’ Compensation Board (board) order awarding claimant police lieutenant compensation for injuries that she suffered when a motorist struck her as she walked across the street from her office to get a cup of coffee. Employer asserts that the board erred in determining that claimant’s injuries occurred “in the course of’ and “arose out of’ her employment. ORS 656.005(7)(a).1 We affirm for reasons amplified below.

We state the relevant facts consistently with the board’s findings. Claimant was a police lieutenant for the City of Eugene, who at the time of the injury, was assigned to the Office of Professional Standards (which included “internal affairs”). Prior to that time, and for the majority of her 17-year career with the city, claimant had worked as a community police officer, which involved responding to calls for assistance, interacting with people while on the streets of Eugene, and engaging with public citizens about community crime prevention strategies. The board summarized the scope of claimant’s work-related responsibilities as of the date of injury as follows:

“Although her duties primarily involved office work, her responsibilities included all police lieutenant and officer duties. Claimant’s assignments included planning, organizing, and supervising police work, responding to major crime and accident scenes, overseeing or supervising investigations, conducting and overseeing internal affairs investigations, and performing the duties of a sworn police officer. The latter duties included responding to calls, detecting and deterring crime, directing traffic at incident scenes, and dealing with distraught victims.
“Moreover, claimant was required to implement the employer’s ‘neighborhood-based community policing’ philosophy, and had been involved with community policing for the majority of her 17 years of work for the employer. Community policing entailed ‘engaging the community in problem solving strategies to not only react to crime,’ but to prevent it. * * * Successful community policing, therefore, required ‘meeting a lot of people and being exposed to these [574]*574people as a police officer and working with them.’ In other words, claimant was expected to interact with people on the streets to forge relationships that would enhance both public safety and neighborhood quality of life.”

Claimant generally worked Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and she managed her own time. Claimant did not have scheduled break periods, but she would, if possible, routinely leave the office to “grab a cup of coffee” at a coffee shop that was located a block away from her office on the opposite side of the street. Claimant’s practice was to purchase her coffee and immediately return to drink it at her desk. During the time that claimant was away from the office she was — as the board found — “still on duty and expected to carry a cell phone,[2] respond to calls, and return to the office if needed. She was also required to * * * perform police duties during the one-block walk to the coffee shop.”

Although claimant had shifted positions within the police department, in addition to her internal investigation tasks, she also (as noted) acted as a community police officer when she was on duty — including when she left the office to get coffee.2 3 For example, during her shift, claimant once witnessed a traffic accident on the street between her office and the coffee shop, and she responded by administering first aid and calling for emergency assistance. On another occasion, she escorted a woman to the woman’s office near the coffee shop because the woman was fearful of her domestic partner, who had been stalking her. When claimant another time encountered a parked vehicle on fire near her office, she applied a fire extinguisher and exercised crowd control. Claimant also frequently engaged with citizens about community law enforcement concerns during her trips to the cof-feé shop.

[575]*575On the day of the injury, intending to purchase a cup of coffee and return to work, claimant left her desk and walked out of the office building. She took her cell phone with her. As claimant started to cross the street to the coffee shop, she was struck by a car and sustained multiple injuries.

Claimant sought workers’ compensation benefits for her injuries, and employer denied the claim. The administrative law judge (ALJ) determined that claimant’s injuries were compensable and, upon the employer’s appeal, the board affirmed.

In so holding, the board rendered a comprehensive analysis of both the “in the course of’ and “arising out of’ components of the “unitary work-connection” test of com-pensability. With respect to the “in the course of’ prong, the gravamen of the board’s reasoning was as follows:

“Here, claimant was injured while on duty and walking to get a cup of coffee, an activity that she routinely performed with the employer’s consent. As an on-duty police officer, she was required to fulfill any and all job responsibilities while on that walk, including being a first responder to any situation. Indeed, it is undisputed that claimant had performed such vital duties in the past while on that same one-block walk to get a cup of coffee. Moreover, claimant was expected to perform, and had performed, essential community policing services as part of her regular walks to the coffee shop. As noted above, these obligations included interacting with citizens on the street during day-to-day activities to form relationships that could improve public safety. Thus, although the isolated task of getting coffee may have been ‘personal in nature,’ claimant’s actions bore ‘some reasonable relationship to [her] employment and [were] expressly or impliedly allowed by the employer.’ [Fred Meyer, Inc. a.] Hayes, 325 Or [592,] 598-99[, 919 P2d 197 (1997)].”

Concomitantly, the board rejected employer’s argument that the circumstances of claimant’s injury implicated the “going and coming” rule, which would preclude compensability:

“Here, claimant was not injured while going to or coming from work. Rather, she was injured while on duty and still required to perform her job duties. Claimant’s ‘work [576]*576space’ was not limited to the office space that she occupied for the majority of her workdays, but included numerous other areas, including the location at which she was injured. Finally, given claimant’s community policing responsibilities and other police officer functions, both of which she had performed on other walks to the coffee shop, we cannot conclude that claimant ‘render[ed] no service for the employer’ on these walks. See [Krushwitz v. McDonald’s Restaurants, 323 Or 520, 526, 919 P2d 465 (1996)].”

Finally, the board explained its determination that claimant’s injuries “arose out of’ her employment. Referring to law enforcement activities that claimant was expected to perform, and historically had performed, during her “walks to get coffee while on duty,” the board concluded:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
282 P.3d 947, 250 Or. App. 572, 2012 WL 2405194, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 796, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-eugene-v-mcdermed-orctapp-2012.