Court Opinion

ID: 9852595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:33:26.069169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:30.384603
License: Public Domain

WATT, J.,
with whom KAUGER, V.C.J., HODGES and SUMMERS, JJ. join, dissenting:
Today’s opinion sustains an award of workers’ compensation benefits to a claimant for injuries sustained while engaging in sexual intercourse. I cannot accede to the majority’s decision. It is my opinion that the claimant’s activities at the time of his accident constituted a form of “horseplay” not covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act. By engaging in sexual intercourse, the claimant transformed his otherwise legitimate work-related conduct into conduct that did not “aris[e] out of ... his employment” within the meaning of 85 O.S.1991 § 11. Accordingly, I believe that the trial court erred as a matter of law in awarding claimant workers’ compensation benefits.
Additional facts not mentioned by the majority include the following. On the night of the accident, claimant and his co-driver/girlfriend, Polly Freeman, were driving through California in a convoy with another company truck. When the other truck went the wrong way at an intersection, claimant pulled his rig to the side of the road and waited several minutes for the other truck to rejoin him. The record does not reveal the activities of claimant and his girlfriend during that time period. When the other truck returned to the correct course, claimant pulled in behind and followed. The accident occurred minutes later at a railroad crossing in the town of Shaftner, California.
When claimant’s rig was struck by the train, Freeman was thrown from the cab and fatally crushed by claimant’s truck. Claimant suffered the injuries for which he now seeks workers’ compensation benefits. The investigating officer, Shaftner Police Officer Mary Beechie, testified that she discovered claimant just minutes after the accident standing outside his truck with his pants unzipped and pushed down to “about mid-hip.” The officer testified that Freeman was clad only in a T-shirt. Ml of the physical evidence indicated that Freeman was sitting on claimant’s lap facing him at the time of impact and that Freeman was thrown from the driver’s side of the cab during the collision. As stated by the majority, the passenger-side door of the rig was completely intact and the driver-side door and windshield were knocked out. Other evidence established that strands of Freeman’s hair were found on the top of the driver’s side door frame and *598that Freeman suffered lacerations only on the right side of her body.
Moreover, claimant admitted that he and Freeman were having sexual intercourse at the time of the accident. The full text of claimant’s admissions are set forth in the majority opinion. Officer Beechie testified that claimant gave her those statements at the hospital some three hours after the accident occurred. Although claimant appeared to be distraught at that time, Officer Beechie testified that he was alert, coherent and appropriately responsive to her questions and the questions of hospital personnel. Those admissions, coupled with the physical evidence, make inescapable the conclusion that claimant and his passenger were engaged in sexual intercourse at the time of the accident.
Title 85 O.S.Supp.1994 § 26 provides that a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Court “shall be final as to all questions of fact.” I am also aware that this Court must employ the “any-competent-evidence” standard when reviewing Workers’ Compensation Court decisions regarding non-jurisdictional questions of fact.1 However, the trial court in this case made no specific factual findings regarding whether claimant was engaged in sexual intercourse at the time of the accident. Therefore, we are free to weigh the evidence regarding this issue on certiorari review. In so doing, I assign no credibility to claimant’s reflective, self-serving trial testimony in which he recanted his earlier statements regarding sexual intercourse.
Even if we were required to apply the “any-competent-evidence” standard in reviewing the issue here, I do not believe that this Court is obliged to mechanically apply any test which would compel us to affirm an unjust, irrational or absurd lower court decision. In drafting § 26, the legislature directed that all decisions of the Workers’ Compensation Court regarding factual issues are final. We have interpreted that provision to mean that all such decisions are final if supported by any competent evidence. However, we must presume that the legislature did not intend any interpretation of § 26 would lead to an absurd result. See TXO Production Corp. v. Oklahoma Corp. Comm’n, 829 P.2d 964, 969 (Okla.1992). Thus, we are required to avoid any construction of § 26 that would lead to an absurdity if such can be done without violating legislative intent. Id. As detailed below, the result reached by the Workers’ Compensation Court here is erroneous as a matter of law. Any perfunctory application of' a standard of review that forces us to affirm such an absurd decision must be avoided. No technical rule of review should ever be used by this Court to sanction a gross miscarriage of justice.
Under the provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act, 85 O.S.1991 § 11, compensation is payable to an injured worker only for disability “resulting from an accidental personal injury sustained by the employee arising out of and in the course of his em-ployment_” (emphasis added).2 See also Matter of Death of May, 586 P.2d 738, 740 (Okla.1978). The phrases “arising out of the employment” and “arising in the course of the employment” are not synonymous; “arising out of the employment” refers to origin and cause, while “arising in the course of the employment” refers to time, place and circumstances. Liebmann Arctic Ice Co. v. Henderson, 486 P.2d 739, 742 (Okla.1971); Midland Co-Operative Wholesale v. Brown, 207 Okla. 441, 250 P.2d 34, 35 (1952). “As a practical matter, it may be said that in the vast majority of cases, if the injury arises out of the employment, it also arises in the course of the employment, but the opposite is not necessarily true.” Liebmann, 486 P.2d at 742. Accord Willis v. State Indus. Comm’n, 78 Okla. 216, 190 P. 92 (1920).
An injury is considered to have been received “in the course of the employment” when it was sustained while the worker was doing the duty which he was employed to perform. Hegwood v. Pittman, 471 P.2d 888, 891 (Okla.1970). It is readily apparent in this case that claimant’s injuries arose in the course of his employment. He was driving a company truck on a routine route and trans*599porting goods for his employer at his employer’s behest. At the time of the accident claimant was, in fact, engaged in doing the duties which he was employed to perform. However, as the foregoing precedent makes clear, that fact alone does not necessarily mean that claimant’s injuries arose out of his employment.
An injury is considered to have “arisen out of the employment” only if (1) there is a causal connection between the conditions under which the work was required to be performed and the resulting injury, and (2) the injury resulted from a risk reasonably incident to the employment. Decker v. Oklahoma State Univ., 766 P.2d 1371, 1374-75 (Okla.1988); Liebmann, 486 P.2d at 742; 85 O.S.1991 § 3(7). A compensable injury “need not have been foreseen or expected, but after the event it must appear to have had its origin in a risk connected with the employment, and have flowed from that source as a rational consequence.” Town of Granite v. Kidwell, 263 P.2d 184, 186 (Okla.1953), quoting Oklahoma-Arkansas Tel. Co. v. Fries, 128 Okla. 295, 262 P. 1062 (1928). Accord In re Loague, 450 P.2d 492, 496 (Okla.1969); Novak v. McAlister, 301 P.2d 234, 236 (Okla.1956).
Inherent in any job that requires travel is the risk that an employee will become involved in an accident. Injuries sustained by an employee during sueh mishaps are generally compensable, even when the accident is caused by the employee’s own negligence or carelessness. Fegett v. Berts Texaco Serv. Station, 495 P.2d 1277, 1278 (Okla.1972); 85 O.S.Supp.1993 §§ 11(A), 12. Further, where a worker is injured during a prank or horseplay in which the worker did not actively participate, the injury is deemed to have arisen out of the employment so as to be compensable. J.C. Hamilton Co. v. Bickel, 174 Okla. 32, 49 P.2d 1065 (1935). See also Willis v. State Indus. Comm’n, 78 Okla. 216, 190 P. 92, 94 (1920) (worker who is a victim of another’s prank should not be denied compensation). Whether claimant was negligent or careless at the time of his accident is not an issue in this proceeding. Nor is this Court faced with a situation where claimant was injured during horseplay in which he did not actively participate. This ease presents a situation where claimant was injured while actively participating in sexual intercourse, which I deem to be the legal equivalent of “horseplay,” “fooling,” “frolic,” “skylarking” or “play” indulged in for an employee’s own amusement. By his own admission the night of the accident, self-serving trial testimony notwithstanding, claimant was engaged in a frolic of his own at the time of the accident.
In Terry Motor Co. v. Mixon, 350 P.2d 953, 955 (Okla.1960), we held that “an injury sustained as the result of play indulged in by an employee for his own amusement does not arise out of the employment, and any disability resulting therefrom is not compensable.” Terry cited with approval 99 C.J.S. § 225, which states:
Under what is apparently the majority view, an injury to an employee as a result of sportive acts of coemployees, horseplay, or skylarking is not compensable as not arising out of the employment where the injured employee was a participant, initiator, or instigator.
Terry, 350 P.2d at 955-56. In Eagle-Picher Co. v. McGuire, 307 P.2d 145, 147 (Okla.1957), we referred to 13 A.L.R. 540 where a parallel sentiment was announced:
It is generally held that no compensation is recoverable under the Workmen’s Compensation Acts, for injuries sustained through horseplay or fooling which was done independently of and disconnected from the performance of any duty of the employment, since such injuries do not arise out of the employment within the meaning of the acts.
This Court has similarly held that “injuries sustained through horseplay or fooling which was done independently of and disconnected from the performance of any duties of the employment ... do[ ] not arise out of the employment within the meaning of the Act[].” Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. v. Davison, 192 Okla. 13, 132 P.2d 937, 939 (1942), citing Horn v. Broadway Garage, 186 Okla. 535, 99 P.2d 150, 151 (1940). Accord Willis, 190 P. at 94.
Sustaining an injury while engaged in sexual intercourse is not the type of risk reasonably incident to driving a semi tractor-trailer *600rig. Claimant s employer neither condoned such acts nor could it have derived any benefit therefrom. Claimant’s willing participation in such non-work-related activities were independent of and completely disconnected from the performance of any duties of his job as a truck driver. As such, his injuries did not “arise out of his employment” within the meaning of the Act and are not compensable.
It is my opinion that claimant’s willing participation in sexual intercourse does not fall within the category of compensable activities contemplated by Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation regime. Thus, I believe the trial court erred as a matter of law in awarding claimant disability benefits. I would reverse the order of the Workers’ Compensation Court and remanded the case with directions to enter judgment for petitioners, thereby denying claimant’s plea for disability benefits.

. Garrison v. Bechtel Corp., 889 P.2d 273, 278 (Okla.1995). See also Parks v. Norman Mun. Hosp., 684 P.2d 548 (Okla.1984).

. The quoted language is now found at 85 O.S.Supp.1993 § 11(A).