Opinion ID: 2542866
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Did Johme Show A Causal Connection Between Her Work And Her Injury?

Text: For an injury to be deemed to arise out of and in the course of the employment under section 287.020.3(2)(b), the claimant employee must show a causal connection between the injury at issue and the employee's work activity. See Miller, 287 S.W.3d at 674 (strictly construing the provisions of section 287.020.2(3)); see also section 287.020.2 (defining what is a compensable accident for workers' compensation and providing: An injury is not compensable because work was a triggering or precipitating factor.). This Court recently addressed the issue of causal connection in Miller. Miller considered whether workers' compensation was payable to an employee who was injured when his knee popped and began to hurt while he was walking briskly toward a truck containing repair material that was needed for his job as a road crew worker. 287 S.W.3d at 672 (noting that the uncontested facts in the case showed that the employee was working and he was walking briskly toward the truck containing repair material when he felt a pop and his knee began to hurt, and he admit[ted] that his work did not require him to walk in an unusually brisk way; that he normally walks briskly at home and did nothing different than usual when walking at work that day). Miller determined that the employee's injury was not compensable in workers' compensation because the uncontested facts show[ed] that [his knee pop] injury occurred at work, in the course of employment, but that it did not arise out of employment.' Id. at 673 (emphasis added). Miller explained: An injury will not be deemed to arise out of employment if it merely happened to occur while working but work was not a prevailing factor and the risk involved  here, walking  is one to which the worker would have been exposed equally in normal non-employment life. The injury here did not occur because [the employee] fell due to some condition of his employment. He does not allege that his injuries were worsened due to some condition of his employment or due to being in an unsafe location due to his employment. He was walking on an even road surface when his knee happened to pop. Nothing about work caused it to do so. The injury arose during the course of employment, but did not arise out of employment. Under sections 287.020.2, .3 and .10 as currently in force, that is insufficient [to award workers' compensation]. .... [T]he the injury is not compensable, as there is no causal connection of the work activity to the injury other than the fact of its occurrence while at work. Id. at 674 (emphasis added). The Commission failed to cite Miller in its assessment of Johme's case. Miller 's holding is controlling. Contrary to the Commission's considerations, Miller 's focus was not on what the employee was doing when he popped his knee  he was walking to a truck to obtain materials for his work  but rather focused on whether the risk source of his injury  walking  was a risk to which he was exposed equally in his normal nonemployment life. Miller instructs that it is not enough that an employee's injury occurs while doing something related to or incidental to the employee's work; rather, the employee's injury is only compensable if it is shown to have resulted from a hazard or risk to which the employee would not be equally exposed in normal nonemployment life. In Johme's case, the Commission erred in focusing its assessment on whether Johme's activity of making coffee was incidental to her employment. The evidence did not link her act of making coffee as the cause of her injury and fall. Instead, the issue in Johme's case was whether the cause of her injury  turning and twisting her ankle and falling off her shoe  had a causal connection to her work activity other than the fact that it occurred in her office's kitchen while she was making coffee. The assessment of Johme's case necessitated consideration of whether her risk of injury from turning, twisting her ankle, and falling off her shoe was a risk to which she would have been equally exposed in her normal nonemployment life. In her case, no evidence showed that she was not equally exposed to the cause of her injury  turning, twisting her ankle, or falling off her shoe  while in her workplace making coffee than she would have been when she was outside of her workplace in her normal nonemployment life. [12] Under the statutory standards for workers' compensation and under the case law outlined by this Court in Miller, Johme's injury was not compensable in workers' compensation because she failed to show that her injury [arose] out of and in the course of [her] employment as mandated by section 287.020.3(2). Johme failed to meet her burden to show that her injury was compensable because she did not show that it was caused by risk related to her employment activity as opposed to a risk to which she was equally exposed in her normal nonemployment life. See sec. 287.020.3(2)(b).