Court Opinion

ID: 9760907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:22:43.893978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:21:04.064148
License: Public Domain

BEYILACQUA, Chief Justice
with whom KELLEHER, Justice, joins,
dissenting.
The facts briefly summarized are not in dispute. The employee was employed as a stock boy. Before lunch time, he left his workplace to get a cup of coffee, which break was authorized. While later returning to eat his lunch, he was stung by a bee. The majority sustained the commission’s holding that there was no evidence establishing a causal connection between the employment and the injury.
The sole question presented is whether the employer is in a better position to bear the loss in a case in which an employee is injured by a neutral force 2 while acting in the course of his employment.
We have held on prior occasions that when the facts are such as to permit reasonable men to draw only one conclusion, the question then becomes one of law and on review we may substitute our judgment. DeNardo v. Fairmount Foundaries Cranston, Inc., 121 R.I. 440, 449, 399 A.2d 1229, 1234 (1979). In the instant case, I am of the opinion that the facts are susceptible of only one conclusion, and therefore the determination of whether the injury arose out of the employment presents a question of law.
This court has consistently repeated that the concept underlying the Workers’ Compensation Act is to provide financial and medical benefits to workers who have been injured while on the job by making the employer carry the burden to provide payments. Guilmette v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 114 R.I. 508, 512, 336 A.2d 553, 555 (1975); Nardolillo v. Big G Supermarket, Inc., 111 R.I. 751, 755, 306 A.2d 844, 847 (1973). Therefore, in order to carry out this concept a liberal construction is given to the act’s provisions “with an eye to effectuating their evident humanitarian purpose.” DeNardo v. Fairmount Foundries Cranston, Inc., 121 R.I. at 452, 399 A.2d at 1236 (Kelleher, J., concurring); Roy v. Providence Metalizing Co. 119 R.I. 630, 636-37, 381 A.2d 1051, 1054 (1978).
Courts have struggled over the years to determine whether a particular injury “arose out of the employment.” However, this court has long recognized that an injury is compensable if the facts of a case establish a causal connection or nexus between the injury and the employee’s employment.3 The required causal connection is not so strict as the proximate cause required in negligence actions. Beauchesne v. David London & Co., 118 R.I. 651, 655, 375 A.2d 920, 922 (1977). A causal connection or nexus, can be established if the conditions and nature of the employment contribute to injury. Id. Thus, to find a nexus, the court must determine if the injury occurred during the period of employment at a place where the employee might reasonably have been and while he was reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment or doing something incidental thereto or to the conditions under which those duties were to be performed. Id.; Carvalho v. Decorative Fabrics Co., 117 R.I. 231, 236, 366 A.2d 157, 160 (1976).
*523I shall admit that the great difficulty in all compensation cases is to determine the causation necessary to provide liability.
In Nowicki v. Byrne, 73 R.I. 89, 93, 54 A.2d 7, 9 (1947), this court held that an injury sustained by an employee from a stray bullet was not compensable because the injury did not result from any risk arising out of the employee’s employment or from any risk reasonably incident to the employment or to the conditions under which the employee worked. The Nowicki court concluded that there was no causal connection between the injury and the employment or the conditions of the work environment.4 In Zuchowski v. United States Rubber Co., 102 R.I. 165, 174, 229 A.2d 61, 66 (1967), this court affirmed the denial of compensation to an employee who had suffered an idiopathic fall in the course of his employment because the necessary element of special risk which would make his injuries compensable was absent.
However, a review of recent cases over the years discloses a complete departure from the views expressed in those cases and a willingness on the part of this court to allow compensation as long as the injury was work connected. Recently, upon examining the facts and circumstances in order to ascertain the nexus between the injury and the employment, this court has stated that compensation should not be denied solely because an employee’s injury occurred away from the work area or off the premises or at a time other than the regular working hours. DeNardo v. Fairmount Foundries Cranston, Inc., 121 R.I. at 453, 399 A.2d at 1236-37 (Kelleher, J., concurring); e.g., Beauchesne v. David London & Co., 118 R.I. at 655, 375 A.2d at 922; Carvalho v. Decorative Fabrics Co., 117 R.I. at 236, 366 A.2d at 160. Thus, employers have paid compensation to employees for injuries received (a) at a company Christmas party, Beauchesne v. David London & Co., 118 R.I. at 655-56, 375 A.2d at 922; (b) during a fellow employee’s horseplay, Carvalho v. Decorative Fabrics Co., 117 R.I. at 236, 366 A.2d at 160; (c) while repairing a house owned by the employer’s family, San Antonio v. Al Izzi’s Motor Sales, Inc., 110 R.I. 54, 56, 290 A.2d 59, 60 (1972); (d) while coming to work, Montanaro v. Guild Metal Products, Inc., 108 R.I. 362, 364-65, 275 A.2d 634, 635 (1971); and (e) while on a midmorning coffee break, Boullier v. Samsan Co., 100 R.I. 676, 679-80, 219 A.2d 133, 135 (1966). In DeNardo, we reversed a denial of compensation in a situation which an employee, while on a break, sustained an injury when he hit a vending machine in order to free a wedged coin. We determined that the causal connection was established because the employee was injured while at work as he was attempting to purchase his cup of coffee so that he could return to work refreshed. We stated that “the employee’s obtaining coffee was not in itself forbidden, even, though the reflex action of the employee in striking the machine was ill-advised or improper. Therefore, an injury arising therefrom would still be compensa-ble. The use of the improper method does not cause the act to cease to be one incidental to and arising put of the employment.” DeNardo v. Fairmount Foundries Cranston, Inc., 121 R.I. at 451, 399 A.2d at 1235.
The majority opinion in the case at bar arbitrarily draws a distinction between cases involving employees who are injured performing personal acts unrelated to employment, even if performed negligently, and cases involving employees who are injured by neutral forces while performing personal acts unrelated to employment. In the first instance the employee’s injury is determined to have arisen out of the employment if the employee’s act was a permitted incident of the employment and was within a permitted place. There is no con*524nection between the employment and the injury other than the fact that the employee was acting in the course of his employment. In the latter instance, however, the employee’s injury is not determined to have arisen out of the employment because, even though the act was a permitted incident of the employment and was within a permitted place, no “causal connection” is determined to have existed between the employment and the injury. The majority opinion thus unreasonably demands a more exacting causal connection in cases involving neutral forces; the employee must establish that his injury was a risk of his employment.
I am of the opinion that in order to fulfill the concept of the act in eases involving neutral forces, we must construe the phrase “arising out of” as requiring the employee to establish that the obligations of his employment placed him in the particular place at the particular time when he was injured by some neutral force. See 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 6.50 at 3-5 (1982). In the instant case the employee was acting in the course of his employment in going on his lunch break. The employee would not have been injured but for his employment. Therefore, in order to alleviate the consequences of personal injury caused by the employment and to effectuate a measure of economic security for the injured worker, we should award compensation to a worker who is injured by a neutral force while acting in the course of his employment.
Accordingly, I would sustain the appeal of the employee, reverse the decree of the commission, and remand the case to the commission for entry of a decree awarding compensation to the employee.

. “Neutral force” may be defined as a force not distinctly associated with the person or the employment, or one in which the cause itself is unknown. Examples include a person at work hit by a stray bullet, bitten by a dog, injured or killed by an “act of God,” stung by a bee, or injured from an unexplained fall. 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 7.30 at 3-12 (1982).

. The Legislature in 1949 amended the Workers’ Compensation Act and removed the requirement that a worker’s injury had to be accidently sustained to be compensable.

. Because of my analysis of workers’ compensation cases involving “neutral-forces,” I am of the belief that the Nowicki case should be overruled. See Industrial Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 95 Cal.App.2d 804, 813-14, 214 P.2d 41, 46 (1950); In re Baran’s Case, 336 Mass. 342, 344, 145 N.E.2d 726, 727-28 (1957); Gargiulo v. Gargiulo, 13 N.J. 8, 13, 97 A.2d 593, 595-96 (1953).