Court Opinion

ID: 9608258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:08:27.506049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:00:53.073476
License: Public Domain

OP ALA, Justice,
with whom SIMMS, Justice, joins, concurring in result but not in the court’s opinion.
The court holds today that the claimant, when injured in a traffic accident between his home and the workplace, was on a “special mission” for his employer. I write separately to identify and explain the interplay of risks that bear upon his claim’s compensability.
As the court correctly notes, a compensation claimant must satisfy a two-pronged statutory test1 by showing that the accidental harm to his body 1) occurred “in the course of the employment,”2 and 2) “arose out of the employment.”3 This claimant met the first prong of the test because he was clearly in the course o/his employment. Ac*876cording to undisputed proof, he was injured when returning to his job site in response to a call by the employer who had summoned him back to work from a lunch break at home. The second prong — that of arising out of the employment — is the central issue in contention before us. Because claimant’s harm is attributable to a single risk factor— the traffic hazard — the second prong of the test must also be regarded as passing muster.4 To a servant ordered back to the workplace from his off-the-premises lunch break to perform an emergency task for the master traffic is an employment-related hazard.5 There is her an absolute evidentiary vacuum for the presence of any risks that are strangers to the hazards legitimately to be associated with employment. Claimant hence bore no probative responsibility to rule out any unrevealed or imaginary personal or neutral risks.
I.
CLAIMANT’S IN-TRAVEL INJURY STANDS INCLUDED WITHIN THE COURSE OF HIS EMPLOYMENT BY THE SPECIAL-TASK DOCTRINE
Travel to and from the workplace during one’s regular work hours is generally regarded as outside the scope of employment.6 A well-recognized exception to the general rule governs situations when the employee is directed to perform a task in furtherance of the master’s business during off-hours.7 Claimant, while at home during his lunch break, was suddenly called away to the workplace on his master’s mission. He was injured in a traffic mishap after responding to the master’s command and before reaching the destination. The special-task exception clearly is to be applied here. In short, the claimant was driving in the course of his employment when the accident occurred.8
II.
THE SOLE RISK OF HARM PRESENT IN THIS CASE ARISES OUT OF AND IS CAUSALLY CONNECTED TO CLAIMANT’S EMPLOYMENT
The law recognizes three different categories of risk associated with injuries claimed to be compensable: 1) those so uniquely associated with employment that they may be regarded as distinctly employment-related, 2) those purely personal to the worker, and 3) those that are neutral.9 An intermixture of employment-related hazards with those that are strangers to the milieu might be regard*877ed as a fourth category.10 Risks that are solely connected with job performance are employment-related.11 Among personal risks are crimes intentionally inflicted upon the employee (who happens to be on the job) by persons who harbor personal ill will. In the latter category, the employment is irrelevant to the harm suffered.12 The so-called neutral risks, such as weather conditions, are neither distinctly occupational nor personal, and thus present factual questions to be decided in each ease.13
The Court of Appeals treated claimant’s motoring hazard as a purely neutral risk— one he shared with other travellers on the road. In that view the appellate court clearly was in error. Had the traffic hazard been a purely neutral risk, claimant would have been required to show his harm was due to some increased risk factor that could be associated with his employment.14 Neither personal nor neutral risks are revealed by the record. The transportation-related hazard that was responsible for claimant’s harm is legally implicit in the special task that called upon him immediately to report to the job site. The law’s demand that the offending risk be causally connected to employment is hence satisfied by the record.15 A causal nexus firmly linking the special task to the injury inextricably connects the accident to a workplace hazard.16
III.
SUMMARY
The special-task mission, begun under the employer’s direction during claimant’s off-the-premises lunch break, subjected him to the roadway hazards in action. No risks distinctly personal nor any derived from a neutral source are revealed by the proof. There is hence a clear connection between the task and the accidental injury suffered. The law’s requirement that the source of a compensable injury not stem from a purely personal risk stands amply met.17 Because the risk responsible for the claimant’s accident that is to be compensated is so closely associated with the task he was then carrying out, it arises out of his employment.18 There is ample support in competent evidence for the conclusion that claimant’s injury resulted *878from exposure to a risk incident to his mission for the employer. The trial tribunal’s finding in his favor is hence binding and may not be disturbed on review.19
I join in vacating the Court of Appeal’s opinion and in affirming the trial tribunal’s award, but recede from today’s opinion.

. " 'Injury' or ‘personal injury' means only accidental injuries arising out of and in the course of employment..." (Emphasis added) 85 O.S. Supp. 1996 § 3(7)a.

. The term "in the course of employment” relates to the time, place, or circumstances under which the injury is sustained. Darco Transportation v. Dulen, Okl., 922 P.2d 591, 594 (1996); Thomas v. Keith Hensel Optical Labs, Okl., 653 P.2d 201, 203 (1982); J. Allison v. Boling, 192 Okl. 213, 134 P.2d 980, 982 (1943).

.The term "arise out of employment" contemplates the causal connection between the injury and the risks incident to employment. Darco, supra, note 2 at 594; Hensel, supra, note 2 at 202; Richey v. Commander Mills, Inc., Okl., 521 P.2d 805, 808 (1974); Graham v. Graham, Okl., 390 P.2d 892, 893 (1964); Stanolind Pipe Line Co. v. Davis, 173 Okl. 190, 47 P.2d 163, 164 (1935).

. See Oklahoma Natural Gas Company v. Williams, Okl., 639 P.2d 1222 (1982), where a claimant who attended a company Christmas party was injured in a traffic accident while returning home. Claimant’s after-hours travel from his home to the party and back was held to be a special mission' — one outside his work routine.

. See Darco Transportation v. Dulen, supra, note 2, at 596, which holds that for a truck driver who is in the course of travel for his master traffic perils are employment-related risks.

. Christian v. Nicor Drilling Co., Okl., 653 P.2d 185, 186 (1982); see text in 1 Larson’s Workmen's Compensation Law, (1996), § 15.00 et seq.

. Oklahoma Natural Gas Company v. Williams, supra, note 4.

. See supra, note 5.

."All risks causing injury to a claimant can be brought within three categories: risks distinctly associated with the employment, risks personal to the claimant, and neutral' risks — i.e., risks having no particular employment or personal character. Harms from the first sue universally compensable. Those from the second are universally noncompensable. It is within the third category that most controversy in modem compensation law occurs. The view that the injury should be deemed to arise out of employment if the conditions of employment put claimant in a position to be injured by the neutral risk is gaining increased acceptance. When employment and personal risks concur to produce injury, the injury arises out of the employment, since the employment need not be the primary cause, but need only contribute to the injury.” 1 Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law § 7.00 (1996), at 3-12; Michael E. Utter, ‘Arising out of and in the Course Of...; Bums v. American Management' *877(a publication of the Oklahoma Trial Lawyers Association, Nov. 1, 1996).

. 1 Larson’s Workmen’s Compensation Law § 7.40 (1996), at. 3-14 — 3-15.

. 1 Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law § 7.10(1996), at 3-12. — 3-13.

. 1 Larson's Workmen’s Compensation Law § 7.30 (1996), at 3-13 — 3-14.

. Darco, supra, note 2 at 594; Hensel, supra, note 2 at 203.

. See American Management Systems, Inc. v. Burns, Okl., 903 P.2d 288, 291 (1995).

. For a detailed explanation of what can be deemed a neutral risk that was enhanced by on-the-job hazards, see jurisprudence discussing the proof required in Oklahoma to show compensa-ble harm from work-related heat exhaustion. In heat stroke claims a worker’s injury must be from exposure to the sun more harmful than that the general public would have experienced when in the same locus in quo — i.e., when present at the time and place of the worker's injurious or fatal solar exposure. Happel v. Bell, Okl., 352 P.2d 400, 402 (1960); Nims & Frost v. Abner, 188 Okl. 356, 109 P.2d 237, 238 (1941).

. The record must show the worker’s injury was causally related to the risks incident to the mission for the employer. See American Management Systems v. Burns, Okl., supra, note 14 at 290.

. An earlier pronouncement in Fox v. National Carrier, Okl., 709 P.2d 1050 (1985), held that all risks from travel in the course of one’s employment are employment-related. Claimants were then aided in the probative process by the provisions. of 85 O.S. 1981 § 27, which operated to place on the employer the burden to pierce the presumption of compensability. Section 27 was repealed in 1986. New language added to 85 O.S. 1991 § 3(7) requires the source of the employee’s injury to be a work-related risk rather than one that is purely personal. As noted in American Management Systems, Inc. v. Burns, Okl., 903 P.2d 288 (1995), the onus of producing evidence and of persuasion now rests entirely upon the claimant. Bums, which changed the interplay of risks applied in Fox, teaches that some risks encountered by a worker who is traveling on the job may not be treated as employment-related.

. Oklahoma Natural Gas Company v. Williams, supra, note 4.

. Darco Transportation v. Dulen, supra, note 2 at 594.