Opinion ID: 852880
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Injuries Arising Out of Employment

Text: To arise out of employment and therefore be compensable, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the worker's employment. Milledge v. The Oaks, 784 N.E.2d 926, 929 (Ind.2003). This is not a case where the injury is claimed to originate with the worker's preexisting physical condition as in Kovatch v. A.M. Gen., 679 N.E.2d 940, 944 (Ind.Ct.App.1997). Nor is it an injury from an unexplained source as in Milledge, 784 N.E.2d at 930. Rather, Global contends that March's injuries arose from his individual decision to exit the truck and confront the strikers. One basis to establish a causal connection is to show the injury resulted from a risk specific to the employment. We recently held that injury from a risk incidental to employment is sufficient to bring a claim within workers compensation as arising out of the employment. Wine-Settergren v. Lamey, 716 N.E.2d 381, 389 (Ind.1999) (the nexus is established when a reasonably prudent person considers the injury to be born out of a risk incidental to the employment, or when the facts indicate a connection between the injury and the circumstances under which the employment occurs). When determining whether a risk or injury is incidental to employment, a court will consider the type of activity in which the employee was engaged when injured and their relationship to: his duties; the reasonableness of employee's acts in relation to the sum total of conditions and circumstances constituting the work setting at the time of the injury; and finally, the knowledge and acquiescence of the employer in situations where acts incidental to employment are being done in violation of company rules. Segally v. Ancerys, 486 N.E.2d 578, 581 (Ind.Ct.App.1985). The pivotal question is whether the person's employment increased the hazard that led to the injury. Id. Global argues that March's exchange with the strikers is not compensable under the Act because March confronted the strikers in a personal capacity, had been expressly warned to avoid the picketers, and went past the strikers, out of harm's way, and then, on his own initiative, in order to confront the strikers, backed his vehicle up into the proximity of the strikers, and voluntarily got out of his vehicle to confront the strikers. This is presented in support of the contention that the injury did not arise out of employment. We think it is a restatement of the arguments directed to in the course of employment. There is no doubt that the blows March suffered were the cause of his injuries. The issue is whether the beating was received in the course of employment. For the reasons given in Part I, we conclude that it was. Insofar as this argument is a separate contention as to arising from, as long as a causal connection exists between the injury and the person's employment, an employee may still recover for an injury sustained while performing personal acts. Prater v. Ind. Briquetting Corp., 253 Ind. 83, 88, 251 N.E.2d 810, 812 (1969). The same chain of events that places his injuries in the course of his employment also establishes that his injuries arose from his employment. Indeed, it seems obvious that March was struck because of his employment, and if he were a passing motorist rather than an employee exiting a plant under strike his injuries would never have been sustained. In sum, the Worker's Compensation Board found that March's injury arose out of and in the course of his employment. The evidence does not lead clearly and inescapably to the opposite conclusion.