Ganus v. St. Bernard's Hospital, LLC

2015 Ark. App. 163, 457 S.W.3d 683, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 205
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedMarch 11, 2015
DocketCV-14-740
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 2015 Ark. App. 163 (Ganus v. St. Bernard's Hospital, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ganus v. St. Bernard's Hospital, LLC, 2015 Ark. App. 163, 457 S.W.3d 683, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 205 (Ark. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

ROBERT J. GLADWIN, Chief Judge

li Stephanie Ganus appeals the August 4, 2014 opinion of the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission finding that she failed to prove that her injury arose out of and in the course of her employment. On appeal, she argues that the Commission misapplied the law. We affirm.

Appellant testified that she worked as a registered nurse in the cath lab for appel-lee St. Bernard’s Hospital, LLC. Her duties included the pre-op and post-op of patients who had cardiac stents. She worked twelve-hour shifts, and her work involved lifting heavy people onto stretchers. She claimed that she had no physical limitations preventing her from performing her regular job duties before the incident at issue. She admitted that she was involved in a car wreck in 1994 that resulted in right-knee surgery, and she claimed that she had recovered from that surgery and was able to do all of her job duties in the cath lab.

| ¡Appellant explained that the lab employees take breaks when they can and that they normally do not clock out for lunch unless they leave the premises. Employees’ paychecks are automatically deducted thirty minutes for lunch. If employees do not leave the premises, they make sure their patients are stable and tell a co-worker that they are taking a lunch break. She testified that when employees go on a break or to lunch, they are not completely relieved of their job duties because they must always represent St. Bernard’s. She asserted that if someone in the hallway needed help or was lost, or if trash needed picking up, the employee was expected to take care of it. She said that it was required that the employee must escort whoever might be asking for directions. Further, she said that she was subject to being called back to her unit if she were on break or at lunch. She explained that the “Committed to Excellence Pledge” required that employees always acknowledge their patients, customers, and visitors.

On September 17, 2018, she had a patient in bad shape, and it took extensive care for him to become stable. She decided that it was okay to take a break at 12:30 p.m. and told a co-worker that she was going to run downstairs, grab something to eat, and bring it back. Her coworker agreed to monitor the patient. Appellant did not clock out. When appellant left to go to the cafeteria, Larinda Lynch, a patient-care technician in the cath lab, went along. As appellant stepped onto the elevator, she tripped and fell. She injured her right knee and could not stand up. When the elevator opened on the first floor, an employee was there with an empty wheelchair. Appellant was helped into the wheelchair and taken to the ^emergency room. A four-view x-ray of her right knee revealed a fracture. She was sent home, and she testified that she had not been back to work since that day.

After being referred to several doctors, appellant had an ACL repair on her right knee performed on December 17, 2013. Her condition improved somewhat, but she continued to walk with a limp, had a lot of pain and swelling, and participated in physical therapy three times a week. She claimed that she could not return to being on her feet eight-to-twelve hours a day. She was still under a doctor’s care and was taking hydrocodone for pain. She said that she could not perform her RN duties while taking hydrocodone.

On cross-examination, appellant stated that she was not going to discharge a job duty when she walked onto the elevator on her way to get lunch that day. She also said that the employee handbook stated that during meal periods, it was anticipated that employees would be completely relieved of their work responsibilities.

Larinda Lynch testified that she recalled taking a break on September 17, 2013, in order to go to lunch with appellant. She said that they left the cath lab and walked down to the elevators. She said that the floor of the elevator did not meet the floor of the hospital, and appellant caught her foot on the gap and fell into the elevator, hitting her knee. She said that they did not usually clock out for lunch and that the time was docked from their pay. She reiterated appellant’s testimony that employees were expected to assist patients at all times and that they were to keep trash and spills cleaned. She stated that neither of them were engaged in any job-related tasks at the time that appellant was injured and that they were both going to lunch.

14After appellant requested workers’ compensation benefits and was denied her claim, a hearing was conducted, and the administrative law judge (ALJ) received the testimony as set forth above and reviewed the medical reports. The ALJ determined that appellant sustained an injury to her right knee arising out of and in the course of her employment that rendered her temporarily totally disabled for the period commencing September 18, 2013, until the end of her healing period, a time yet to be determined. Appellees filed a notice of appeal to the Full Commission, which reversed the ALJ’s decision. The Commission held that appellant failed to prove that she was performing employment services at the time of her injury, finding as follows:

In the present claim, the claimant was going to retrieve her own lunch from the cafeteria downstairs when she tripped and fell. The record shows that she was permitted a thirty minute lunch each day, and that her pay was automatically docked for that time whether she took lunch or not. And, while the testimony of Ms. Lynch corroborated the claimant’s testimony that, as representatives of the respondent-employer, nurses were expected to assist patients and/or visitors any time the need arose, the claimant was assisting no one at the time of her accident. Furthermore, the claimant admitted that she was not in possession of any patient charts, notes, or other work materials at the time of the accident. Further, the claimant agreed that the employee handbook, which she acknowledged and signed,’ specifically stated that employees on their thirty minute lunch break were “completely relieved” of their work responsibilities. Furthermore, the claimant’s testimony, as corroborated by the record, shows that the claimant was free to leave the premises during her lunch time if she so chose. Finally, although the claimant had been one-on-one with a critical patient prior to her lunch break, that patient was left under the supervision of another nurse at the time of the claimant’s injury. Clearly, at the time of her accident the claimant was not engaged in any activity that benefitted her employer, either directly or indirectly, nor did her actions advance the employer’s interests in any way. Rather, the particular facts of this claim show that the claimant was beginning her lunch break when she tripped and fell on the way to the cafeteria to retrieve her own lunch. Therefore, we find that the claimant has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she was performing employment services at the time she was injured.

| «¡Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal, arguing that the Commission incorrectly applied the law to the undisputed facts of this case. When reviewing a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Commission, this court views the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the findings of the Commission. Trezza v. USA Truck Inc., 2014 Ark. App. 555, 445 S.W.3d 521. This court must affirm the decision of the Commission if it is supported by substantial evidence.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2015 Ark. App. 163, 457 S.W.3d 683, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 205, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ganus-v-st-bernards-hospital-llc-arkctapp-2015.