Court Opinion

ID: 9753347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:09:06.849398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:34.375902
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Senior Judge FRIEDMAN.
I respectfully dissent. The majority holds that Brenda Werner (Claimant) failed to establish that Donald Werner, Deceased (Decedent), was in the course and scope of his employment when he was injured on March 8, 2007.1 For the following reasons, I cannot agree.
Decedent worked for Greenleaf Services Corporation (Employer) as an international sales manager. When Decedent was not traveling, he worked either in Employer’s Saegertown office or from his home office. On March 8, 2007, Decedent had taken sick leave to attend medical appointments for a cut on his hand, but he was able to perform some work from his home office, including phone calls and emails. Sometime between 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., i.e., during lunch hour, Decedent took a break. During that time period, he went outside the front door of his house and fell, injuring his head. He left his glasses on the ground and went inside to the bathroom to wash away the blood. He then returned to his home office, leaving his cell phone in the bathroom. He was discovered by Claimant, unresponsive in his desk chair.
The WCJ stated: “The fact that he may have read some emails or made some business phone calls does not establish that he was in the course and scope of his employment at any time on Ma[rch] 8, 2007 let alone at the time he was injured and died.” (WCJ’s Findings of Fact, No. 14) (emphasis added). However, there is no question that Decedent was furthering Employer’s business, and in the course and scope of this employment, while he was engaged in work-related phone calls and work-related emails. See Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Alston), 900 A.2d 440 (Pa.Cmwlth.2006) (holding that the claimant was injured in the course and scope of her employment *253when she fell while talking on the phone with her supervisor at home, where she had a home office). The WCJ’s statement to the contrary constitutes an error of law.
The WCJ also stated that the “fact that [Decedent] was sitting in a chair in his home office when he was discovered by his wife is not enough to prove he was in the course and scope of his employment at the time of his injury.” (WCJ’s Findings of Fact, No. 13.) However, this statement is based on the above error of law, i.e., that Decedent was not previously in the course and scope of employment. If the WCJ had properly concluded that Decedent was in the course and scope of his employment during the morning hours, the WCJ might have considered differently whether Decedent’s return to his home office after a lunch break, and an injury, meant that Decedent continued in the course and scope of employment.2
If the WCJ had found that Decedent intended to continue doing some work in his home office after the injury, the next question would have been whether Decedent was in the course and scope of employment during the break, when he was injured outside his home. If Decedent had been in the Saegertown office and was injured during a break on Employer’s premises, Decedent would have been in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the injury. If Decedent had been traveling and was injured during a personal comfort break anywhere, Decedent would have been in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the injury.
An employee working in a home office is a stationary employee, not a traveling employee, and is not technically on the employer’s premises. However, where, as here, an employer has approved an employee’s use of a home office, I submit that the home office is the equivalent of the employer’s premises. Thus, when the employee is injured while taking a break at home, he has not abandoned his work but, rather, remains in the course and scope of employment. See Verizon, 900 A.2d at 445 (stating that, under the personal comfort doctrine, an employee who sustains an injury at work during an inconsequential or innocent departure from work during regular working hours is considered to have sustained an injury in furtherance of the employer’s business).
Because the WCJ’s critical findings are based on an error of law, I would vacate and remand for new findings of fact and conclusions of law.

. In so holding, the majority states that the "record is unclear as to how Decedent was injured, where Decedent was injured, and at what specific time Decedent was injured." (Majority Op. at 252.) However, in my view, the evidence establishes that Decedent sustained a head injury when he fell outside his home during a break while working in his home office.

. Although Decedent had taken sick leave for medical appointments for a cut on his hand, the sick leave obviously did not prevent Decedent from doing work in his home office.