Court Opinion

ID: 9539985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:12:03.82605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:30.720812
License: Public Domain

RABINO WITZ, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I agree with the court’s holding that travel for medical treatment of work-related injuries is covered under the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Act. I disagree *1152with the court’s affirmance of the Board’s determination that Adams’ five-day delay in returning home to Wasilla ended the compensability of his return trip.
In reaching its conclusion that Adams’ delay terminated the compensability of the return trip, the Board explicitly held “that a dual-purpose medical treatment return trip must be undertaken ‘as soon as reasonably possible’ in order to be covered.” Applying this standard the Board concluded that
the return trip delay of five days precludes a finding that the return trip began as soon as reasonably possible. The employee forthrightly admitted that the delay was attributable to his personal business rather than weather, transportation, physical limitation, or other constraints. The Board finds that a delay of five days in returning to Wasilla from a medical examination in Anchorage, under the employee’s circumstances, was too long. The Board finds that due to this delay the return trip, and injuries arising from the resulting auto accident, are not compensable.
From the foregoing, it is clear that the Board adopted a test which requires the employee to undertake the return trip “as soon as reasonably possible.” In affirming the Board’s determination that Adams’ five-day delay in Anchorage ended the com-pensability of his return trip, the court implicitly rejects the Board’s “as soon as reasonably possible” test. In its place the majority employs a multi-part balancing test which this court first articulated in Anchorage Roofing Co., Inc. v. Gonzales, 507 P.2d 501 (Alaska 1973). In that case we said:
[Tjhere is the need ... to balance a variety of factors such as the geographic and durational magnitude of the deviation in relation to the overall trip, past authorization or toleration of similar deviations, the general latitude afforded the employee in carrying out his job, and any risks created by the deviation which are causally related to the accident.
Id. at 507.
The Anchorage Roofing test differs significantly from the “as soon as reasonably possible” test employed by the Board. I am therefore of the view that the case should be remanded to the Board for purposes of redetermining the compensability of Adams’ return trip under the criteria set forth in Anchorage Roofing.