Title: State ex rel. Wyoming Worker's Compensation Div. v. Miller

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

State ex rel. Wyoming Worker's Compensation Div. v. Miller1990 WY 18787 P.2d 89Case Number: 89-157Decided: 02/16/1990Supreme Court of Wyoming
STATE OF WYOMING EX REL., 
WYOMING WORKER'S COMPENSATION DIVISION, PETITIONER 
(OBJECTOR-DEFENDANT),

v.

PHYLLIS MILLER AND 
PIONEER MANOR, 

RESPONDENTS, 
(EMPLOYEE-CLAIMANT).

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., Ron Arnold, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., argued, and Larry Donovan, 
Cheyenne, for petitioner.

J. Stan Wolfe 
and S. Gregory Thomas, argued, Gillette, for respondent 
Miller.

Robert W. Brown, 
argued, Sheridan, for respondent Pioneer Manor.

Before 
CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY and GOLDEN, 
JJ.

CARDINE, Chief 
Justice.

[¶1]      Respondent 
Phyllis Miller was employed as a nurse's aide by Pioneer Manor, a nursing home 
in Gillette, Wyoming. On October 17, 1988, she completed her shift, clocked out 
at 6:30 a.m., and proceeded directly out of the building towards her car. It had 
been raining during her entire shift and, on her way to the parking lot owned 
and maintained by her employer, she stepped off a sidewalk onto a muddy portion 
of lawn. She slipped and fell, breaking her left arm close to the 
wrist.

[¶2]      Subsequently, Ms. 
Miller filed an injury report and sought worker's compensation benefits. 
Petitioner, Wyoming Worker's Compensation Division (Division), objected on the 
ground that her injuries were not causally related to her job and, therefore, 
not within the coverage of the Worker's Compensation Act. A hearing was set in 
the matter for January 25, 1989. Following that hearing, an administrative 
hearing officer determined that the scene of the accident was a part of 
respondent's employment environment and that her presence there was a practical 
necessity of her job. Consequently, the hearing officer concluded that her 
injury was causally connected to the employment and awarded her benefits. The 
Division petitioned for judicial review, contending that the hearing officer's 
decision was neither in accordance with law nor supported by substantial 
evidence. Upon the joint request of the parties, the matter was certified 
directly to this court, pursuant to W.R.A.P. 12.09.

[¶3]      We affirm. 

[¶4]      The outcome in 
this case is controlled by our recent decision in Archuleta v. Carbon County 
School District No. 1, 787 P.2d 91 (Wyo. 1990). In Archuleta, a high school 
custodian suffered a fatal injury in the school parking lot shortly after 
punching the time clock at the end of his work day. Benefits were denied to his 
surviving dependents on the basis that his accident was not causally connected 
to his employment. We reversed, holding that injuries to a worker with both 
fixed hours and a fixed place of employment were presumptively compensable if 
the injuries occurred on his employer's premises while going to and from work 
before or after working hours.

[¶5]      Our decision in 
that case rested on our adoption of the so-called "premises rule," as set out in 
1 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation §§ 15.00-15.12(a) at 4-3 to 4-8 
(1989).

"As to employees having 
fixed hours and place of work, injuries occurring on the premises while they are 
going to and from work before or after working hours or at lunchtime are 
compensable, but if the injury occurs off the premises, it is not compensable, 
subject to several exceptions. Underlying some of these exceptions is the 
principle that course of employment should extend to any injury which occurred 
at a point where the employee was within range of dangers associated with the 
employment." Id., § 15.00 at p. 4-3.

It was argued 
there, as it is argued in the present case, that the adoption of the premises 
rule was foreclosed by our decision in Matter of Injury to Corean, 723 P.2d 58 
(Wyo. 1986). We explained, however, that our rejection of that rule in Corean 
derived not from our disagreement with the substance of the rule but, rather, 
from our disinclination to apply it as broadly as Corean urged. That is, we 
explained that we had rejected the premises rule in Corean only to the extent 
that it was understood to conclusively establish a causal connection between 
on-premises injuries and employment. We stated, in this 
regard:

"We noted in Corean that 
on-premises accidents are, indeed, most often causally connected to employment, 
thereby suggesting that a presumption created by rule might have considerable 
validity, albeit not the conclusive validity argued for in Corean. A trend 
toward adoption of a premises rule, insofar as it creates a rebuttable 
presumption of causal connection, has been foreshadowed by a number of our prior 
decisions." Archuleta, 787 P.2d  at 93.

Accordingly, we 
adopted the rule as creating a rebuttable presumption of a causal nexus between 
injury and employment. Because Archuleta's uncontested evidence showed that he 
had fixed hours and a fixed place of employment, and because it also established 
that his accident occurred on his employer's premises while he was in the 
process of leaving for home shortly after the end of his work day, we held him 
entitled to the presumption created by the rule.

[¶6]      The same result 
should obtain in the present case. It is uncontested that Ms. Miller's accident 
occurred at her regular place of employment shortly after punching out at the 
end of her scheduled shift. It is similarly uncontested that she was injured on 
her employer's premises while walking to her car to go home. The hearing officer 
was, therefore, justified in relying upon the presumption raised by the premises 
rule that her accident was causally connected to her employment. The resulting 
decision was in accordance with the law, as established in Archuleta, and was 
supported by substantial evidence. The hearing officer's order awarding benefits 
is affirmed.

MACY, Justice, dissenting, 
with whom GOLDEN, Justice, joins.

[¶7]      I dissent. Ms. 
Miller was not injured during "the course of employment while at work." Wyo. 
Stat. § 27-14-102(a)(xi) (1977). See my dissent in Archuleta v. Carbon County 
School District No. 1, 787 P.2d 91 (Wyo. 1990).