Court Opinion

ID: 9795685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:35:56.210033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:31:26.180059
License: Public Domain

Greene, J.,
dissenting: I respectfully dissent from my colleagues’ conclusion that McCready’s injuries of September 9,2005, arose “out of’ her employment. In summary, I would conclude the fall was the result of normal activities of day-to-day living and therefore not compensable under K.S.A. 44-508(e).
*95The facts appear to be undisputed and are stated in appellants’ brief: “claimant exited a friend’s car on respondent’s premises, turned to walk down the sidewalk to the door and fell. She does not say she slipped, tripped or that the sidewalk had anything to do with causing her fall.” According to claimant, she “[t]urned to the right to take a step up to the door” and “saw the door and then I saw the cement. ... I don’t know what happened.” Moreover, it is undisputed that claimant was morbidly obese, weighing approximately 475 pounds, but the record is apparently silent on any relationship between this preexisting condition and the precipitation of the fall.
K.S.A. 44-508(e) provides in material part that “[a]n injuiy shall not be deemed to have been directly caused by the employment where it is shown that the employee suffers disability as a result of the natural aging process or by the normal activities of day-to-day living.” (Emphasis added.) As noted by the majority, a panel of our court has recently revisited this exception in Johnson v. Johnson County, 36 Kan. App. 2d 786, 147 P.3d 1091, rev. denied 281 Kan. 1378 (2006). In concluding that an injury resulting from getting up out of a chair at work was not compensable, the panel reasoned:
“The language of K.S.A. 44-501(a) and K.S.A. 2002 Supp. 44-508(e) shows that injuries caused by or aggravated by the strain or physical exertion of work do not arise out of employment if the strain or physical exertion in question is a normal activity of day-to-day living. Substantial evidence did not support the Board’s finding that Johnson’s act of standing up from a chair to reach for something was not a normal activity of day-to-day living. See Poff v. IBP, Inc., 33 Kan. App. 2d 700, 710, 106 P.3d 1152 (2005) (‘Standing and sitting are normal everyday activities.’).
“Other jurisdictions which have considered similar factual scenarios have reached the similar conclusion that ordinary activities of daily living which result in on-the-job injuries are not compensable under workers compensation laws. [Citations omitted.]” 36 Kan. App. 2d at 790.
Just as standing, sitting, and getting up out of a chair are normal activities of day-to-day living, I would hold that stepping from a car and turning to walk down- a sidewalk are also normal activities of day-to-day living. In fact, our court has previously held that a back injury suffered when a claimant exited his vehicle upon arrival at work was not compensable where neither the claimant’s vehicle nor the condition of the premises had anything to do with the *96injury. Martin v. U.S.D. No. 233, 5 Kan. App. 2d 298, 615 P.2d 168 (1980). The court noted that “almost any everyday activity would have a tendency to aggravate his condition [with a history of back problems], i.e., bending over to tie his shoes, getting up to adjust the television, or exiting from his own truck while on a vacation trip.” 5 Kan. App. 2d at 300.
A fair reading of our caselaw reveals that the test is to determine whether the injuiy was “fairly traceable to the employment and not coming from a hazard to which the workman would have been equally exposed apart from the employment.” See, e.g., Angleton v. Starkan, Inc., 250 Kan. 711, 718, 828 P.2d 933 (1992); Boeckmann v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 210 Kan. 733, 734, 739, 504 P.2d 625 (1972) (compensation denied when injury occurred when worker stooped down to pick up a tire because there was no difference between stoops and bends on the job or off); Siebert v. Hoch, 199 Kan. 299, 303-04, 428 P.2d 825 (1967); Taber v. Tole Landscape Co., 181 Kan. 616, 313 P.2d 290 (1957). Here, an unexplained fall during an exit and turn from a vehicle is not fairly traceable to the employment but rather a hazard to which the worker would have been equally exposed apart from the employment.
In concluding that McCready s injury was compensable, the Board cited an authoritative treatise for the proposition that “[t]he majority of jurisdictions compensate workers who are injured in unexplained falls upon the basis that an unexplained fall is a neutral risk and would not have otherwise occurred at work if claimant had not been working,” citing 1 Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law §7.04[1]. Scrutiny of the treatise’s “Digest” of recent cases, however, shows that jurisdictions are nearly evenly split on this question, with a bare majority of jurisdictions willing to compensate for “unexplained falls.” Moreover, any such majority may result merely because many jurisdictions have statutory presumption of coverage. See 1 Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law § 7.04[3].
Notably, there is a lack of any treatise citations to Kansas cases. I respectfully believe this is because Kansas courts generally need not struggle with the relative risks of unexplained falls due to the statutoiy exclusion of coverage for injuries arising from normal ac*97tivities of day-to-day living. When properly analyzed, the central reason that many falls are “unexplainable” is that they have occurred in circumstances with no remarkable explanation or as a part of normal day-to-day activity common to any venue. Whether such falls occur while standing, sitting, stooping, walking, running or otherwise, and in the absence of an explanation tracing the fall to the particular circumstances of the employment, our statutory scheme simply does not permit compensability.
For these reasons, I believe McCready s injuries from the September 9, 2005, incident are not compensable because they did not arise out of her employment, and I would reverse this aspect of the Board’s award.