Virginia Employment Commission v. Hale

598 S.E.2d 327, 43 Va. App. 379, 2004 Va. App. LEXIS 304
CourtCourt of Appeals of Virginia
DecidedJune 29, 2004
Docket1823033
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 598 S.E.2d 327 (Virginia Employment Commission v. Hale) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Virginia Employment Commission v. Hale, 598 S.E.2d 327, 43 Va. App. 379, 2004 Va. App. LEXIS 304 (Va. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

ROBERT P. FRANK, Judge.

The Virginia Employment Commission/Commonwealth of Virginia (employer) appeals a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Commission awarding disability compensation and medical benefits to Rhonda Hale (claimant). On appeal, employer contends the commission erroneously concluded claimant’s injury, which resulted from a lightning strike, arose out of the peculiar conditions of her employment. We find no credible evidence in the record to support the commission’s finding, and, therefore, we reverse and dismiss.

BACKGROUND

Claimant worked for employer as an interviewer. That position required claimant to perform a variety of different tasks including the operation of the office’s switchboard. On May 2, 2002, claimant and a co-worker, Barbara Reynolds, were assigned to work at the switchboard. This duty was “a normal and necessary part of [their] job[s],” and they did not have the option of refusing switchboard duty.

When claimant returned from lunch, a “big storm was brewing.” “[I]t got real dark outside” and was “[t]hunder[ing]” and “light[ ]ning.” Reynolds initially “was sitting in the main switchboard seat,” but she did not feel comfortable [382]*382there, so claimant “took that position.” Reynolds moved to a second telephone within a few feet of claimant. Both women were “trouble shooting claims or answering questions from claimants.” They continued to answer the phones during the storm because they “had not been instructed not to answer the phone.”

While claimant was on the telephone with a caller and had her hand on the computer keyboard, she heard “a real loud noise in the telephone” and saw “a big blue ... transparent streak” of light “c[o]me right down beside [her] work station.” Claimant thought “[i]t looked like light[ ]ning.” Claimant screamed or uttered some sort of exclamation. She thought she “actually lost the call,” and her computer “flieker[ed].”

Claimant felt she had been shocked by the lightning. Her extremities began to tingle, and her speech became garbled. She immediately reported the incident to Reynolds, who confirmed that she, too, saw a streak of light and heard a loud noise. Claimant described her symptoms to Reynolds, including “a tingling in her hands and arms, sort of like [she] had been electrocuted.” Reynolds observed that claimant “was like shaking or nervous or tense.” Reynolds then asked the assistant office manager “if [they] could not answer the phones and he said that [they] had to.” Claimant continued to answer the telephone, but said she “hung up on quite a few people because [her] speech was garbled.”

About thirty minutes after the lightning strike, claimant became nauseous and began having chest pains. She told her immediate supervisor that they had “what ... appeared to be light[ ]ning come in,” and she described her symptoms.

The lightning did not damage either claimant’s or Reynolds’s telephone or computer. No damage was done to the building’s roof, ceiling tiles, carpet, or furniture.

Claimant worked through the end of her shift and then sought treatment at the hospital emergency room, where she was admitted as a precautionary measure. Emergency room notes indicate claimant told the staff that she “was working at her job on a computer and talking on the telephone, when she [383]*383saw a blue streak of light[]ning hit her computer.” Later, claimant visited a sleep clinic and described to the personnel:

an incident at her work suggesting that lightening had struck and come through the phone or computer line and affected the [claimant].... She was not actually struck directly by the light[ ]ning but said that it came through her equipment. She saw a blue streak of light[ ]ning behind a partition where she works. She was very close to the blue streak of light[ ]ning she saw.1

Claimant was diagnosed with “[e]leetrical shock secondary to light[ ]ning.” She was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Her primary care physician found she was temporarily and totally disabled, but was able to return to work on August 20, 2002.

Employer denied claimant’s request for workers’ compensation benefits, and claimant requested a hearing. After taking testimony, the deputy commissioner awarded benefits. He found claimant’s evidence was credible and concluded, “claimant, because of her duties as an interviewer, was exposed to the causative hazard involved to a degree greater than others in the community.” He noted, “claimant’s duties [at employer’s switchboard] were mandatory rather than discretionary, and, because [claimant] was assisting a customer over the telephone during a thunderstorm, [she] was as a result of her employment exposed to a danger which someone not similarly situated could have avoided.” The deputy specifically rejected employer’s “inferential[ ]” argument that:

because the telephone and computer equipment involved [sustained no damage], the incident did not occur, and the claimant could not have been injured____ The fact that other employees at [employer]’s facility were unaffected only proves the claimant’s case that she was, by virtue of her operation of the switchboard, at greater risk of injury during the storm than anyone else.

[384]*384The full commission affirmed the award of benefits, explaining:

From this record, we agree with the deputy commissioner that the injury arose out of the employment. The deputy commissioner explicitly found the claimant to be credible. She credibly testified that she was talking at a telephone while operating the employer’s switchboard when she saw a lightning bolt and felt shocked. Her co-worker corroborated the incident. We agree with the deputy commissioner that the claimant’s employment, and in particular, her use of the employer’s switchboard equipment during a thunderstorm, brought into existence a special or peculiar risk of electrical shock through a lightning strike.

ANALYSIS

Employer concedes claimant was struck by lightning, but argues no evidence supports a finding that her employment placed her at greater risk of being struck. Based on the record and controlling precedent, we agree with employer.

In order for an employee to recover under the Workers’ Compensation Act, she must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, Hercules, Inc. v. Stump, 2 Va.App. 77, 79, 341 S.E.2d 394, 395 (1986), that she suffered an “injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment.” Code § 65.2-101 (definition of “injury” for Workers’ Compensation Act cases). “The phrase arising ‘in the course of refers to the time, place, and circumstances under which the accident occurred. The phrase arising ‘out of refers to the origin or cause of the injury.” County of Chesterfield v. Johnson, 237 Va. 180, 183, 376 S.E.2d 73, 74 (1989). Our focus in this case concerns the latter inquiry—whether claimant’s injury arose “out of’ her employment. Under this prong of the test, “[h]azards to which the general public is equally exposed are noncompensable.” Lucas v. Fed. Express Corp., 41 Va.App. 130, 134, 583 S.E.2d 56, 58 (2003).

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Bluebook (online)
598 S.E.2d 327, 43 Va. App. 379, 2004 Va. App. LEXIS 304, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/virginia-employment-commission-v-hale-vactapp-2004.