Title: State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div. v. Espinoza

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div. v. Espinoza1996 WY 131924 P.2d 979Case Number: 95-259Decided: 10/07/1996Supreme Court of Wyoming
STATE of Wyoming, ex rel., WYOMING WORKERS' COMPENSATION 
DIVISION,

Appellant 
(Petitioner),

v.

Amber R. ESPINOZA, 

Appellee 
(Respondent).

Appeal from Workers' 
Compensation Division petitioned District Court, Laramie County, Nicholas G. 
Kalokathis, J.

William U. Hill, 
Attorney General; John W. Renneisen, Deputy Attorney General; and Robert L. 
Lanter, Assistant Attorney General, Cheyenne, for Appellant.

Richard Wolf of 
Wolf & Tiedeken, Cheyenne, for Appellee.

Before 
TAYLOR, C.J., and THOMAS, MACY, GOLDEN* and LEHMAN, 
JJ.

* Chief Justice at time of 
conference.

TAYLOR, Chief 
Justice.

[¶1]      At work in a fast 
food restaurant, appellee went to retrieve a customer's order. Her path was 
blocked by a young male co-employee. Horseplay between the two suddenly 
escalated and the co-employee punched appellee, breaking her jaw. We affirm the 
administrative hearing examiner's conclusion that appellee suffered a 
compensable injury.

I. 
ISSUES

[¶2]      Appellant, State 
ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Division (Division), states a trio of 
issues:

I.          
Whether the administrative hearing officer's determination, that 
claimant's injury resulted from horseplay and therefore arose out of and in the 
course of her employment, was unsupported by substantial evidence.

II.          
Whether the administrative hearing officer's determination that 
claimant's injury arose out of and in the course of employment was contrary to 
Wyo. Stat. 27-14-102(a)(xi), the definition of "injury".

III.         
Whether the administrative hearing officer's determination that 
claimant's actions did not constitute a willful intention to injure her 
coemployee was contrary to Wyo. Stat. 27-14-102(a)(xi)(B)(ii), the exceptions to 
the definition of "injury"[.]

[¶3]      Appellee, Amber 
Espinoza (Espinoza), articulates a single issue:

Was the decision of the 
Hearing Officer, the Order Awarding Benefits dated June 27, 1995, finding that 
Appellee's injury received from being struck by a co-employee was compensable, 
supported by substantial evidence?

II. 
FACTS

[¶4]      Early in the 
evening of December 27, 1994, Espinoza and James Trujillo (Trujillo), two 
fifteen-year old school friends, were part of a youthful crew working at a 
Burger King restaurant in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Trujillo worked in the back, 
preparing food, while Espinoza was waiting on customers out front. An adult 
supervisor sat in a closed office tallying receipts. 

[¶5]      When an order of 
apple pie was not forth-coming within the "time limit," Espinoza went to 
personally retrieve the pie, only to find her return path blocked by Trujillo. 
Espinoza asked Trujillo to step aside because "I got to get this order out." 
Playful words and nudges suddenly escalated, however, when Trujillo threw a 
punch, breaking Espinoza's jaw in two places.

[¶6]      When her employer 
objected to the compensability of Espinoza's injury, the case was referred to 
the Office of Administrative Hearings. From that administrative hearing 
examiner's award of benefits, the Division petitioned the district court for 
judicial review, whereupon the parties jointly requested certification of the 
question to this court.

III. STANDARD OF 
REVIEW

[¶7]      We are required, 
by Wyo. Stat. § 16-3-114(c)(ii)(E) (1990), to hold unlawful and set aside agency 
action, findings and conclusions found to be unsupported by substantial 
evidence. Coleman v. State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div., 915 P.2d 595, 597-98 (Wyo. 1996). "Substantial evidence is relevant evidence that a 
reasonable mind can accept as adequate to support * * *" administrative findings 
and conclusions. Casper Oil Co. v. Evenson, 888 P.2d 221, 224 (Wyo. 1995). It is 
the burden of the party challenging the findings and conclusions of the hearing 
examiner to demonstrate that they are not supported by substantial evidence. 
Devous v. Wyoming State Bd. of Medical Examiners, 845 P.2d 408, 414 (Wyo. 
1993).

IV. 
DISCUSSION

[¶8]      At the contested 
case hearing, Espinoza's burden was to establish every essential element of her 
claim by a preponderance of the evidence. Johnson v. State ex rel. Wyoming 
Workers' Compensation Div., 911 P.2d 1054, 1058 (Wyo. 1996). It is elementary to 
every claim for worker's compensation that the harm complained of arises "out of 
and in the course of employment while at work in or about the premises occupied, 
used or controlled by the employer[.]" Wyo. Stat. § 27-14-102(a)(xi) (Cum.Supp. 
1996). This requires "`a nexus between the injury and some condition, activity, 
environment or requirement of the employment.'" Baker v. Wendy's of Montana, 
Inc., 687 P.2d 885, 892 (Wyo. 1984) (quoting Matter of Willey, 571 P.2d 248, 250 
(Wyo. 1977)). Existence of such a nexus depends upon a reasonable relationship 
between the project being performed and the claimant's job. Stuckey v. State ex 
rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div., 890 P.2d 1097, 1099 (Wyo. 
1995).

[¶9]      There is no 
dispute that Espinoza suffered a serious physical injury during regular working 
hours. Espinoza's unrefuted testimony showed that she was filling a customer's 
order when her injury occurred. Neither the record nor the Division's arguments 
afford us any alternative explanation for Espinoza's proximity to Trujillo at 
the time he struck and injured her.

[¶10]   The Division, however, insists that 
momentary horseplay between two teenagers severed the requisite connection 
between Espinoza's work and her injury. By the early 20th century, Justice 
Cardozo realized that employment of younger workers will inevitably occasion 
some horseplay as an indivisible condition of the work environment:

"For workmen of that age 
or even of maturer years to indulge in a moment's diversion from work to joke 
with or play a prank upon a fellow workman, is a matter of common knowledge to 
every one who employs labor." The claimant was injured, not merely while he was 
in a factory, but because he was in a factory, in touch with associations and 
conditions inseparable from factory life.

Leonbruno v. 
Champlain Silk Mills, 229 N.Y. 470, 128 N.E. 711, 711 (1920) (quoting, in part, 
Hulley v. Moosbrugger, 87 N.J.L. 103, 93 A. 79, rev'd 88 N.J.L. 161, 95 A. 1007 
(1915)).

[¶11]   Be the work product bolts of silk 
or burgers and fries, the common sense of Justice Cardozo is equally germane. 
Espinoza's encounter with Trujillo was not a frolic of her own but a condition 
of her employment - an obstacle in the path of her efforts to further her 
employer's business objectives by providing prompt customer service. We hold 
that substantial evidence on the record supports the hearing examiner's finding 
that Espinoza suffered her injury in the course of her employment.

V. 
CONCLUSION

[¶12]   Substantial evidence supports the 
determination that Espinoza suffered a compensable injury. The award of benefits 
to Espinoza is affirmed.