Court Opinion

ID: 9629242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:39:33.072164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:05.758876
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
dissenting, with whom BURKE, Justice, joins.
There are here none of the employment related contacts which existed in our other remote site cases. Thus, in Northern Corporation v. Saari, 409 P.2d 845, 847 (Alaska 1966), “Saari was killed in the course of utilizing the recreational facilities at the air base which had been provided by Northern for the benefit and enjoyment of Saari and other employees.” Anderson v. Employers’ Liability Corp., 498 P.2d 288 (Alaska 1972), involved an injury to an on-call employee on the premises supplied by the employer. State Department of Highways v. Johns, 422 P.2d 855 (Alaska 1967) involved an injury while the employee was traveling to work and was being compensated for the travel.
This case should be governed by R.C.A. Service Co. v. Liggett, 394 P.2d 675 (Alaska 1964) where we reversed an award for an employee who was killed while flying home from a remote job site for private purposes. The majority opinion makes an effort to distinguish the RCA situation from the current one by noting that here Schleifman’s “leave” from the work site had not begun while implying that the employee’s leave had begun in RCA. Actually there is no important difference between the two cases. Schleifman was off work for the day and was free to spend his time until the next day as he saw fit. He chose to go to Glennallen. Likewise the employee in RCA was through for the day and decided to fly to Fairbanks to spend the evening with his family. Like Schleifman, he was to report to work the next day.
The fact that Schleifman had intended to cash his pay check is of no relevance. The overwhelming majority of Alaskan employees receive pay checks and no doubt most of them travel to a bank or other business to cash them. To conclude that an injury suffered on such a trip is compensable stretches the course of employment stan*137dard beyond the breaking point. And there is nothing in the record indicating that Schleifman’s trip on the public highway between Sourdough and Glennallen involved unique danger.
The two check cashing cases cited by the majority opinion do not support the proposition that an injury suffered while one is traveling to cash one’s pay check arises out of and in the course of employment. The injury in the first case, Dependents of Pacheco v. Orchids of Hawaii, 54 Haw. 66, 502 P.2d 1399 (1972), occurred during a coffee break and thus falls within the so-called “coffee break exception” to the going and coming rule which ordinarily denies compensation for trips to and from work. See 1A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation, § 15.-54 (1978). In the second case, Watson v. American Can Company, 23 A.D.2d 423, 261 N.Y.S.2d 306 (1965), the accident occurred during a lunch break and there were special circumstances not present here. Larson says the following of Watson and another similar New York case:
While the result in the two New York eases is defensible on the special facts of those cases, it is obvious that they cannot be taken to support a general rule that journeys to cash pay checks are in the course of employment. Any such extrapolation would quickly get out of hand, since trips might be taken at any hour of the day or night to almost any place where claimant happened to be able to cash checks.
Larson, supra,. § 26.30, page 5-247.
For these reasons I would reverse the decision of the Superior Court and remand with instructions to reinstate the Board’s decision.