Court Opinion

ID: 9617442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:55:22.489834+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:09.416785
License: Public Domain

Judge Greene
dissenting.
I agree with much of the majority’s analysis of whether petitioner’s injuries arose from, and occurred during the course of, *255her employment. However, the majority has mistakenly dismissed the significance of Finding No. 1, the only finding by the Commission relevant to determining what petitioner’s “employment” was. Determining the nature of plaintiff’s employment is critical since it permits resolution of the mixed questions of law and fact whether petitioner’s employment was a proximate cause of her injuries, presented a risk “peculiar to her employment,” and rendered “reasonable” petitioner’s apparent belief her actions were “incidental” to her employment and beneficial to her employer. Cf. Roberts v. Burlington Indus., Inc., 321 N.C. 350, 355, 364 S.E. 2d 417, 421 (1988) (employment must be contributing cause of injury); Gallimore v. Marilyn’s Shoes, 292 N.C. 399, 403, 233 S.E. 2d 529, 532 (1977) (employment must subject employee to risk peculiar to, “and reasonably related to,” employment); Guest v. Brenner Iron & Metal Co., 241 N.C. 448, 453, 85 S.E. 2d 596, 600 (1955) (employee had reasonable grounds to believe act resulting in injury was incidental to employment and beneficial to employer’s interests).
I particularly note the Roberts Court’s manner of distinguishing its facts from those in Guest, where the employee was clearly carrying out his employment duties when he rendered the disputed assistance: “[T]he injured employee [in Guest] . . . had reason to believe that . . . completing] his mission for his employer was contingent upon” rendering assistance. Roberts, 321 N.C. at 356, 364 S.E. 2d at 422 (emphasis added). To be “reasonable,” petitioner’s inference that her assistance was incidental to her employment must somewhere be premised on the objectively-determined facts of her employment, rather than on an endless chain of other inferences, however well-intentioned. In this case, it is therefore important that we determine what petitioner was employed to do, and what she in fact did as a result of that employment, in order to determine whether she had reason to believe her employment was, as in Roberts, “contingent” on rendering assistance to her former customer.
Under the particular facts revealed by this record, the reasonableness of this petitioner’s belief primarily turns on one factual issue: whether her employer instructed her to be cordial and helpful while carrying out her primary duties as bartender and waitress, or whether her employer instead instructed her to be cordial and helpful at all times in addition to her bartend-ing/waitressing duties. If the latter characterization is correct, then it may be correct to state petitioner reasonably extrapolated a *256belief her employment justified her stopping to aid her former customer: if petitioner was in effect instructed to be prepared for intensely personal contact with her customers at all times, then her situation is analogous to the insurance salesman granted compensation in Lewis v. Kentucky Central Life Ins. Co., 20 N.C. App. 247, 201 S.E. 2d 228 (1973). The Roberts Court approved compensation to the Lewis petitioner since the petitioner insurance salesman “was engaged in an ‘intensely personalized calling’ requiring frequent contact with his policy holders.” 321 N.C. at 357 n.2, 364 S.E. 2d at 422 n.2. Conversely, if the former characterization is accurate, then petitioner’s belief would not be reasonable since stopping to aid a former customer would be more directly analogous to the petitioner denied compensation in Roberts: the only benefit to petitioner’s employer would be speculative goodwill. Cf. Roberts, 321 N.C. at 355-56, 364 S.E. 2d at 421 (rejecting speculations about goodwill).
I believe Commission Finding No. 1 resolves the characterization of petitioner’s employment in this respect. It states:
1. In August 1981, plaintiff worked for defendant-employer, a resort community, as a bartender and part-time cocktail waitress.... In her service to defendant employer’s customers, plaintiff was directed to be cordial at all times while on duty since guests were prospective home buyers.
The majority completely dismisses Finding No. 1 as unsupported by any evidence. This is simply incorrect. There is sufficient evidence in the record from which the Commission could have drawn reasonable inferences to support Finding No. 1 —despite any argument a contrary inference might have been drawn with equal reason. At numerous points in the transcript, petitioner herself refers to her employment as only consisting of bartending, waitressing, and certain directly incidental duties:
Q: What was your position of employment?
A: I was a bartender and part-time waitress.
Q: And, as a bartender and part-time waitress, just briefly tell us what your functions were —what you were to do.
A: When I was a bartender, I would go on to make sure there was ice and open up, you know, the cabinets and bring out the bottles and the mixes and the juices and whatever *257else I needed back there and then just go on and work with people when they came in and serve —only members could be served —serve the members of the club or guests at the inn. When I was a waitress, you know, I just waited on tables.
[T. 4],
Q: Were you working as a bartender or a waitress [the night of your injuries]?
A: It was a family night dinner so I was doing both. I was working at the bar and also serving stuff and cleaning and all that.
Q: And, when you completed your serving activities there, what else remained to be done as a part of your work?
A: Well, I had to clean up the bar and clean up the kitchen and lock it up —I had paper work to complete and turn in from the day and turn in money. So, I had to go take that to the inn.
[T. 7-8],
Q: Okay. So, you drove your car from the country club around eleven or so at night. Your work at the country club as a bartender and waitress was concluded, is that correct?
A: After—
Q: With the exception that you had to turn the money in?
A: Yes.
[T. 42],
Q: And, when you turned in your paperwork and the xerox copy at the front desk, having already turned in the money, you had then completed your work responsibilities for that evening at Fairfield, isn’t that correct?
A: Yes, sir.
[T. 44]. These exchanges certainly support the Commission’s Finding No. 1 that petitioner’s employment consisted of bartend-ing/waitressing and only required petitioner to aid customers while on duty.
*258.. The only reference in the entire transcript to any requirement of her employment that petitioner be otherwise “cordial” or helpful to guests at the resort is the following:
Q: Did you have occasion during the course of that employment to receive any instructions from your employer as to how you were to conduct yourself with regard to those customers that you serve?
A: Well, yes. Most of the people coming up there were looking at buying property and we were to be very cordial and friendly and nice and offer any assistance that we could.
[T. 5 (emphasis added)]. This is the only reference in the record to any generalized cordiality or courtesy. There is no evidence anywhere else in the record that this petitioner, or any other bartender/waitress, ever aided a guest at the resort apart from their duties as bartender or waitress.
Given this solitary reference to the alleged “cordiality” requirement, petitioner is in a fatal quandary. If, as the majority asserts, petitioner’s testimony did not itself constitute any competent evidence to support the Commission’s Finding No. 1, then there is similarly no competent evidence from which the Commission could have conversely determined that petitioner had been instructed to be cordial and helpful even when not “on duty.” If there is no competent evidence whatsoever on the question of any “cordiality” requirement, then plaintiff has clearly failed to meet her burden of showing cordiality was such a part of her employment that it justified her stopping to aid a former customer after she had completed her work as a bartender/waitress.
Conversely, if petitioner’s lone reference is sufficient evidence from which the Commission could determine what petitioner’s employer instructed her to do, then I believe the Commission’s inferences were clearly reasonable and binding on this appeal. The Commission is the sole judge of the credibility of witnesses and the weight given their testimony. It may accept any part and reject any part of that testimony. Blalock v. Roberts Co., 12 N.C. App. 499, 504, 183 S.E. 2d 827, 830 (1971). The Commission is permitted to draw reasonable inferences from the circumstances shown by the evidence: that other reasonable inferences could have been drawn is no indication of error since deciding which permissible inference to draw from evidentiary circumstances is as much within *259the fact finder’s province as its deciding which of two contradictory witnesses to believe. Snow v. Dick & Kirkman, Inc., 74 N.C. App. 263, 267, 328 S.E. 2d 29, 32, disc. rev. denied, 314 N.C. 118, 332 S.E. 2d 484 (1985). “The courts are not at liberty to re-weigh the evidence and to set aside the findings of the Commission, simply because other inferences could have been drawn and different conclusions might have been reached.” Rewis v. New York Life Ins. Co., 226 N.C. 325, 330, 38 S.E. 2d 97, 100 (1946).
I note the Commission explicitly rejected petitioner’s proposed finding that, “plaintiff had been directed by defendant-employer as part of her employment instructions to offer any assistance to guests that she could.” Irrespective of how reasonable that finding may have been, I believe the Commission’s Finding No. 1 was an equally (if not more) reasonable inference to draw from petitioner’s lone reference in the transcript to her instruction to be “cordial.” Under Roberts, Finding No. 1 in turn directly supports the Commission’s Conclusion. No. 2 that, “when plaintiff stopped to aid an individual who later assaulted her, she was not acting in the scope of her employment with defendant-employer and her injury did not arise out of the course of that employment.” In addition, that finding would preclude any notion that petitioner had “returned” to her employment when she stopped to aid her former customer. Consequently, the Commission’s findings also support its Conclusion No. 1.
My analysis of the record in no way arises from any gross generalization that an employer may always limit an employee’s right to compensation simply by giving certain instructions. The nature of a petitioner’s employment must be realistically based, not on any particular job title, but on what the employee actually does as a result of his employment. However, under the facts of this particular administrative record, the only factual basis petitioner asserts for her belief that her employment somehow required her to assist any guest in any way at any time is founded on the lone instruction by her employer quoted earlier. I simply believe that lone instruction as characterized in Finding No. 1 was insufficient to support a reasonable belief that petitioner’s employment was contingent on her rendering aid under these circumstances. To hold otherwise is to adopt the “positional risk” doctrine rejected in Roberts.
*260Thus, I would affirm the order of the Commission denying petitioner compensation for her injuries. I therefore respectfully dissent.