Court Opinion

ID: 9748348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:00:25.093111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:34.594531
License: Public Domain

ROBERT S. BARNEY, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the principal opinion’s determination that the Commission erred when it concluded that Claimant suffered no “more than a pedestrian stumble that could have happened anywhere, anytime, and to any person.” It is clear her injuries arose from a hazard related to her employment, and the Commission erred in its conclusion that such an accident and resulting injury could have happened to *469anybody outside of work. I concur in the principal opinion’s determination to reverse the Commission’s final award and remand for further proceedings.
In its “Findings of Fact,” the Commission found that Claimant “was on her feet and attending to patients approximately 80 percent of her shift. Her shift was normally 12 hours in length three or four days a week.” It further found that “Dr. T. Swain examined Claimant and opined that her work at the hospital was the prevailing factor of her injury.” It then concluded that “Claimant was injured while she was performing the duties of her job. As a supervising nurse, she was asked by a patient to go get some pain medicine.” As she was leaving the doorway “she twisted her foot. This resulted in a fracture.” It further concluded that “[i]t was, rather, the act of turning that caused her injury.” Here, there is no question that the Commission found and determined there was an accident and that it arose out of and in the course of employment.
As noted by the principal opinion, since the Commission only made a finding as to section 28Y.020.3(2)(b), we review whether there was substantial evidence to support the Commission’s conclusion that Claimant’s injury came from a hazard or risk unrelated to employment to which Claimant was equally exposed in her normal non-employment life.
Therefore, employing the two-step analysis as enunciated by the principal opinion, the first step is to determine whether the hazard or risk is related or unrelated to the employment. Where the activity giving rise to the accident and the resulting injury is integral to the performance of a worker’s job, the risk of the activity is related to employment. In such a case, there is a clear nexus between the work and the injury. Therefore, where the work nexus is clear, there is no need to consider whether the worker would have been equally exposed to the risk in normal non-employment life. Only if the hazard or risk is unrelated to the employment does the second step of the analysis apply.
Given the factual scenario of this case there is no need to address whether Claimant was equally exposed to the hazard or risk in her normal, non-employment life, because there was a clear nexus between her work as a supervising nurse, where while going to give medicine to a patient she “turned her ankle and foot,” and her resulting injury. Clearly the activity giving rise to the accident and injury was integral to the performance of her job such that it was a risk related to her employment. Since it was related to her employment it does not matter that she could have replicated her injury away from work.
The scenario in the instant matter is far different than that of Miller, 287 S.W.3d at 672. In Miller, the claimant was merely walking in a straight line on a level surface when his knee popped. Id. Here, unlike in Miller, Claimant twisted her foot, resulting in a fracture in the bones of her right foot as she was turning a corner in order to get medicine out of a storage room. This activity was clearly related to her employment.