Court Opinion

ID: 9661646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:45:41.358655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:31.773135
License: Public Domain

John Mauzy Pittman, Judge, dissenting. The Commission found that the appellant failed to prove he was performing employment services when he was injured. I agree with the conclusion stated in Judge Bird’s dissent that this finding is supported by the evidence. Where a claim is denied because the claimant has failed to show entitlement to compensation by a preponderance of the evidence, the substantial-evidence standard of review requires us to affirm if the Commission’s opinion displays a substantial basis for the denial of relief. Williams v. Arkansas Oak Flooring Co., 267 Ark. 810, 590 S.W.2d 328 (Ark. App. 1979). The Commission here denied relief because appellant gave two conflicting accounts of what he was doing when the injury occurred, leading the Commission to reject appellant’s testimony at the hearing that the accident took place after he had already returned to work. Appellant, as claimant, had the burden of proving entitlement to benefits under the Workers’ Compensation Act by a preponderance of the evidence. Clardy v. Medi-Homes LTC Services LLC, 75 Ark. App. 156, 55 S.W.3d 791 (2001). Given that the Commission chose to believe the version of events in appellant’s recorded statement indicating that appellant had not yet returned to work from his break when the injury occurred, and that appellant failed to prove what he was doing during the break from which he was returning, I agree that the Commission’s opinion displays a substantial basis for the denial of relief. I write separately because I disagree with the interpretation set out in Judge Bird’s dissent of our supreme court’s decision in Collins v. Excel Speciality Products, 347 Ark. 811, 69 S.W.3d 14 (2002). There the court held that: We note that the activity of seeking toilet facilities, although personal in nature, has been generally recognized as a necessity such that accidents occurring while an employee is on the way to or from toilet facilities, or while he or she is engaged in relieving himself or herself, arise within the course of employment. As the court of appeals reasoned in Matlock v. Blue Cross, supra: Restroom facilities are provided in work settings because eliminating bodily toxins and wastes are natural and ordinary biological processes. Employers provide restroom facilities for the benefit of their customers, to be sure. But they also provide those facilities to accommodate their workers so as to avoid the work interruptions and delays that would certainly occur if workers were forced to leave the employment premises in order to find a public restroom at some distance from the work, their supervisors, and customers. Matlock v. Blue Cross Blue Shield, 74 Ark. App. at 341-42, 49 S.W.3d at 139. Like the appellant in Matlock, Ms. Collins had gone to a restroom provided by her employer when the accident occurred that resulted in her injuries. Her conduct was entirely consistent with the employer’s interest in advancing the work. Everything in the record before us indicates that appellant was engaged in conduct permitted by the employer, if not specifically authorized by the employer, and that the employer provided restroom facilities on its premises. Collins v. Excel Specialty Products, 347 Ark. 811, 818-19, 69 S.W.3d 14, 19-20 (2002). In my view, the above-quoted language does more than simply establish a “bathroom exception.” I believe that the true import of Collins is that an employee activity, although personal, will be viewed as compensable if it is a necessary function and it directly or indirectly advances the interests of the employer.1 It was therefore incumbent on the claimant in this case to prove not merely that he was injured while returning from a break, but also that he was returning from a break involving a necessary function that advanced the interests of the employer. I would affirm.   The possible examples of such circumstances are legion. Certainly, an outdoor worker’s break to drink water on a hot summer day is as necessary to the worker and beneficial to the employer as a bathroom break would be.