Court Opinion

ID: 9542494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:35:01.7547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:07.990199
License: Public Domain

DEITS, C. J.,
dissenting.
The Board concluded in this case that claimant’s injury did not occur “in the course of’ his employment and, therefore, that his injury was not compensable. The majority concludes that claimant’s injury did occur “in the course of’ his employment and, consequently, reverses the Board. In my opinion, the majority reaches that result by misapplying applicable case law. I believe that the Board correctly analyzed and decided this case. Accordingly, I dissent.
The Board begins its opinion by correctly articulating the applicable law. It explains that an injury is compen-sable if it “arises out of’ and occurs “in the course of’ the worker’s employment. Norpac Foods, Inc. v. Gilmore, 318 Or 363, 867 P2d 1373 (1994). As the Board points out, these two prongs are part of a “work connection” inquiry to determine whether the relationship between the injury and the employment is sufficient to conclude that the injury is compensable. Both the “arising out of’ and the “in the course of’ prongs must be satisfied to some degree. Krushwitz v. McDonald’s Restaurants, 323 Or 520, 919 P2d 465 (1996).
The Board then goes on to explain that, generally, an injury that occurs while a worker is going to or coming from work is not considered to have occurred “in the course of’ employment and is not compensable. That general rule is called the “going and coming” rule. As the Board notes, the *125reason for the “going and coming” rule is that the relationship of employer and worker ordinarily is suspended from the time that the worker leaves work to go home until he or she resumes work. Id. at 527.
The Board then recognizes that the courts have determined that there are some exceptional circumstances that involve a worker traveling to and from work that may be considered to be “in the course of’ a worker’s employment. The Board notes that one exception of significance here is the “special errand” rule. Under that exception, an injury may be compensable even if incurred while off the employer’s premises traveling to and from work, if the employee is “acting in the furtherance of the employer’s business at the time of the injury” or if the employer had “a right to control the employee’s travel in some respect.” Id. at 528.
In applying the above legal principles, the Board first concludes that, because claimant was not actually traveling to perform any “work” on the day of his injury, neither the “going and coming” rule nor the “special errand” exception is applicable to this case.1 The Board explains that that conclusion alone should end the work-connection inquiry and would support the conclusion that claimant’s injury was not compensable. However, the Board goes on to hold that, even assuming that the “going and coming” rule and the “special errand” exception apply directly or by analogy to circumstances where the employee is not traveling to the employer’s premises to “work,” but for an employment-related purpose, the requirements of the special errand rule are not met here and, accordingly, the injury is not in the course of claimant’s employment and is therefore, not compensable.
The majority begins its analysis of this case by correctly explaining the two prongs of the work-connection test discussed above. It is after that, however, that, in my view, the majority goes astray. Despite the fact that there is a well established legal framework for analyzing the compensability of injuries that occur while a worker is traveling to and from the workplace, namely the “going and coming rule” and *126the “special errand” exception to that rule, and despite the fact that this framework was the basis of the Board’s decision and the focus of claimant’s arguments, the majority does not appear to deem it necessary to address those concepts. Rather, the majority quotes language from the Supreme Court’s decision in Fred Meyer v. Hayes, 325 Or 592, 942 P2d 197 (1997), explaining the work-connection test first set forth in the Supreme Court’s 1994 Norpac decision. The majority then refers to language from a 1977 decision of this court, Allen v. SAIF, 29 Or App 631, 564 P2d 1086, rev den 280 Or 1 (1977), for the proposition that all of the concepts such as the “going and coming” rule and the “special errand” rule are “helpful for conceptualization and indexing, but there is no formula for decision.” Pursuant to the language from Allen, the majority then proceeds to analyze this case without considering the “going and coming” rule.
In my opinion, the case law does not support the proposition that the legal framework developed to analyze cases involving workers traveling to and from the workplace need not be addressed at all. The only support that the majority relies on for the approach that it takes is the language from our decision in Allen, noted above. The majority states that this language was “quoted favorably” by the Supreme Court in Fred Meyer. 160 Or App at 121. However, the reference in Fred Meyer to the language in Allen simply cannot be read as an abandonment of the existing legal framework for analyzing the compensability of injuries that occur while an employee is traveling to and from the workplace. As discussed above, the premise underlying the general rule, that injuries incurred while a worker is traveling to and from work are not compensable, is that the relationship of employer and employee is suspended from the time that the worker leaves work until the time that the worker resumes work. The exceptions to that rule have been specifically and narrowly defined. Krushwitz, 323 Or App at 529. It makes no sense to conclude that the carefully defined limits applied when reviewing the compensability of injuries that occur while a worker is traveling to and from his or her place of employment are abandoned if the worker is not traveling there to work, but to carry out some other employment-related purpose.
*127I am not sure that I fully understand the basis of the majority’s decision here. Although the majority apparently does not believe it necessary to consider the “going and coming” rule and its exceptions, and does not directly address them, the points on which the majority relies to reach the conclusion that the Board was wrong appear to involve elements of the “special errand” exception to the “going and coming” rule. The majority appears to accept the Board’s findings and agrees that the Board’s findings were supported by substantial evidence. It explains that its disagreement with the Board is that, in its view, the Board’s findings do not lead to the legal conclusion that claimant was injured in the course of his employment. Inexplicably, however, in reaching that conclusion, the majority seems to quarrel with the Board’s findings of fact.
An example of the majority’s disagreement with the Board’s findings of fact involves the Board’s explicit finding that claimant’s activities were not in furtherance of employer’s business. The Board found:
“Although the employer directed claimant to drop off a copy of his off-work slip, claimant’s actions were not in furtherance of the employer’s business (the sale of automobiles), nor was claimant acting on the employer’s behalf at the time of his injury. Claimant made the trip primarily for his own benefit, to secure his entitlement to continued temporary disability benefits in connection with this prior injury claim.” (Footnote omitted.)
Claimant moved for reconsideration of the Board’s decision, arguing that he was acting in furtherance of the employer’s business and, therefore, came within the “special errand” rule, because he was injured while driving a demonstrator vehicle and because the employer had an interest in seeing him in person to determine his condition. In rejecting those arguments, the Board explained:
“In our prior order, we expressly concluded that these facts did not render claimant’s injury per se compensable. We explained that claimant was not acting in furtherance of the employer’s business (the sale of automobiles) nor was he acting on the employer’s behalf at the time he was injured. We found that claimant made the trip primarily for • his own benefit; i.e., to secure his entitlement to continued *128temporary disability benefits. We also noted that claimant was not under the employer’s control at the time of his injury. Although claimant was driving a ‘demonstrator’ vehicle furnished by the employer, claimant had been released from work and the employer did not control the time, manner of travel, or route to be taken on this particular trip to the employer’s premises.” (Emphasis in original; footnote omitted.)
Claimant filed a second motion for reconsideration of the Board’s order on that point, and the Board again rejected his argument, explaining:
“We conclude that even if claimant’s trip to the employer’s premises did not affect his entitlement to temporary disability and even assuming the employer had an interest in having injured workers personally deliver documentation of their medical status, claimant’s trip did not fall within the ‘special errand’ exception (even by analogy) because claimant was not acting in furtherance of the employer’s business at the time of the injury.” (Emphasis in original.)
The majority rejects those findings, concluding that they involve a question of law and, therefore, in its view, it is entitled to substitute its judgment on the question. The majority states:
“Employer’s written employee policy pertaining to on-the-job injury time losses requires ‘an employee * * * to report to their manager on a weekly basis by reporting in the first day of their scheduled work week,’ and provides that the failure to report ‘could lead to disciplinary action.’ Employer can hardly argue that the delivery of the authorization was not for its benefit when its policies and reported requests required claimant to perform that act.” 160 Or App at 122.
In my opinion, the question of whether claimant’s activities were in furtherance of employer’s business involves a question of fact. The Board found that these activities were not in furtherance of employer’s business and that finding is supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, I would hold that the Board’s legal conclusion that these activities did not *129come within the “special errand” exception and, consequently, were not “in the course of’ claimant’s employment is correct.
The second point that the majority relies on to support its legal conclusion that claimant’s injuries were com-pensable is the fact that the employer directed the claimant to drop off a copy of his off-work slip. The majority concludes that the employer’s direction creates a sufficient work connection to support the conclusion that claimant’s injury was compensable. In reaching this conclusion, however, I believe that the majority again uses the wrong legal framework. Under the applicable case law, the inquiry as to the significance of whether this activity was directed by the employer should be analyzed in the context of the “special errand” exception to the “going and coming” rule. These rules were specifically designed to analyze circumstances where an injury occurs while the worker is traveling to the place of employment. Again, as noted above, it makes no sense to conclude that if a worker is not traveling to the employer’s place of business to work, but to carry out a work-related purpose, less stringent standards should apply in determining if the injury is compensable. Krushwitz, 323 Or at 528.
The Board made explicit findings on this point. It found:
“In addition, although claimant used his demonstrator vehicle to make the delivery, the employer did not have any right to control the time, manner of travel, or route to be taken on claimant’s trip. Indeed, the record establishes that, regardless of whether or not claimant was actually required to personally deliver the off-work slip, he made the delivery when it was convenient for him to do so. Finally, we find nothing about claimant’s mid-afternoon trip to the employer’s premises on December 29, 1995 which resulted in substantially increased risk over his usual trips to and from work. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the ‘special errand’ exception does not apply, even by analogy.” (Footnote omitted; citation omitted.)
The Board’s findings are supported by substantial evidence. In view of these findings of fact and applying the correct legal framework, I would hold that the Board did not err in concluding that claimant’s activities did not come within the *130“special errand” rule and, consequently, were not “in the course of’ his employment.
For all of the above reasons, I would affirm the Board’s decision and, accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

 The Board concluded that there was no evidence that travel was part of his employment, and claimant does not argue otherwise.