Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Commission

614 P.2d 851, 126 Ariz. 309, 1980 Ariz. App. LEXIS 509
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedJuly 10, 1980
Docket1 CA-IC 2218
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 614 P.2d 851 (Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Commission, 614 P.2d 851, 126 Ariz. 309, 1980 Ariz. App. LEXIS 509 (Ark. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

OPINION

CONTRERAS, Judge.

This special action — Industrial Commission presents the question of whether an employee’s injuries resulting from an assault that occurred off the employer’s premises by an assailant who hid in the employee’s car while it was parked on the employer’s premises and who sought the employer’s business receipts arose out of and in the course of that employee’s employment.

The material facts of this case are not in dispute. Respondent, the employee, worked for Phillips Petroleum Company as a service station attendant in Kingman, Arizona. His duties involved selling gasoline and automobile merchandise, and collecting money from these sales. At the end of the business day, respondent would place the money received from the day’s sales in a safe located on the premises and close the station.

On November 21, 1977, respondent drove his car to work and parked it on the station premises with his employer’s permission. At the end of his work day, respondent placed the receipts in the safe, closed the-station and got in his car to drive home. His car had not left the premises since respondent arrived for work. Without respondent’s knowledge, an uninvited passenger was hiding in the backseat of his car.

Shortly after leaving the station, respondent’s passenger made his presence known by demanding the cash receipts from the station. After being told that the receipts were in the safe at the station, the person then demanded and received respondent’s personal cash. This person (whom we shall call the robber) directed respondent to drive to a dump site. At the site, the robber ordered respondent to get out of the car and walk to the edge of an embankment. The robber then pushed respondent over the edge of the embankment and drove away in respondent’s car.

Respondent sought workmen’s compensation benefits for the injuries sustained in his fall at the dump site; his claim was initially denied. Following a hearing held at respondent’s request, the hearing officer issued an award finding the claim compen-sable. The award was affirmed on administrative review and this timely special action followed.

The sole, but not simple, issue is whether respondent was injured “by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment.” A.R.S. § 23-1021(A); see Ariz.Const. art. 18, § 8. In order to ease analysis of this issue, our courts have developed a bifurcated approach. To be compensable, an injury must both arise “out of” the employment and “in the course of” the employment. The elements must exist con- *311 junctively. Royall v. Industrial Commission, 106 Ariz. 346, 476 P.2d 156 (1970). We shall call these the “arising” and “course” requirements. To arise out of the employment, the injury must find its cause or origin in the employment. Id. To arise in the course of the employment, the injury must have occurred in the time, place and circumstances of the work environment. Id. We first consider whether respondent’s injuries arose out of his employment.

Regarding the “arising” requirement “the employee must show that the injury had its origin from a risk connected with the employment and that it flowed from that source as a rational consequence . .” Treadway v. Industrial Commission, 69 Ariz. 301, 308, 213 P.2d 373, 378 (1950); O’Connor v. Industrial Commission, 19 Ariz.App. 43, 47, 504 P.2d 966, 970 (1973). The employee must show causation. In respondent’s case, the facts are compelling— so much so that petitioner does not argue the lack of causation, though not conceding its presence.

Respondent was injured by a person desirous of robbing the station of its receipts. Only when this desire was thwarted did the robber steal respondent’s cash, push him down the embankment and take his car. Respondent’s injuries were the direct result of the robber’s actions in his attempt to obtain the station’s receipts. Petitioner contends that insufficient evidence was presented to demonstrate the work-related nature of the risk of this assault. In our opinion, respondent’s unimpeached testimony regarding the robber’s demands is sufficient to prove that the risk of robbery by a person seeking the property of respondent’s employer could be considered a risk “ ‘inherent in the employment or [at least] incidental to the discharge of the duties thereof.’ ” Royall v. Industrial Commission, 106 Ariz. at 349, 476 P.2d at 159. We acknowledge that the cause of respondent’s injuries may not have been wholly work related because the robber may have intended to take both the respondent’s and the employer’s property. However, this does not alter our conclusion because an industrially related incident does not have to be the sole cause of a claimant’s injuries, so long as it is a cause. McNeely v. Industrial Commission, 108 Ariz. 453, 501 P.2d 555 (1972).

The fact that the robber entered respondent’s car when it was parked on the employer’s premises, while more properly relating to the “course” requirement, does demonstrate a causal link between respondent’s employment and injuries. The robber’s place of entering the car tends to bolster the conclusion that he held, in part at least, the intent to rob respondent of the station’s receipts. We conclude that respondent’s injuries were work related and had their origin in his employment. This conclusion is reasonably supported by the evidence. We next consider whether these injuries arose in the course of respondent’s employment.

We reiterate that the term “in the course of” the employment refers to the time, place and circumstances in which the injury arises.

The type of activity which most clearly satisfies the “course” test is the active performance by the employee of the specific duties which he was engaged to perform. A “weaker” class of activity — that is, which does not so clearly meet the “course” test or may fail to meet it altogether — includes those activities which are only incidental to the performance of the employee’s duties, such as seeking personal comfort, going to and coming from work, engaging in recreation, and the like. Some of the activities of the latter type have been held to fall completely short of satisfying the “course” test. For example, in this jurisdiction, if at the time of an accident an employee is on his way to work or is on his way home from work with no duty to perform for his employer, the “going and coming” rule applies and the injury is noncom-pensable as being not within the course of employment, (citations omitted)

Royall v. Industrial Commission, 106 Ariz. at 350, 476 P.2d at 160. Petitioner contends that the “going and coming” rule should *312 have been applied to respondent’s claim because he was injured after working hours, outside the employer’s premises, while on his way home and not carrying out any duties of his employment.

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Bluebook (online)
614 P.2d 851, 126 Ariz. 309, 1980 Ariz. App. LEXIS 509, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hartford-accident-indemnity-co-v-industrial-commission-arizctapp-1980.