Which of the following injuries are compensable: (1) a nurse twists her knee while standing and turning to get water for a patient or (2) a custodian dislocates her knee while bending down to pick up her own dropped pill? Because a compensable injury must arise out of and in the course of employment, one might conclude that the former injury is compensable while the latter injury is not. The Court of Appeals of Georgia, however, disagreed and held the opposite.
On March 17, 2006, Wendy Harris, a custodian at the Peach County Courthouse, was discussing work issues with her supervisor when she realized a diuretic pill she had placed in her pocket had fallen on the floor. When her supervisor pointed it out to her, she bent down to pick up the pill and dislocated her knee. Harris’s supervisor testified that Harris’s job duties included removing foreign objects from the floor, regardless of whether the object was her own medication. Because bending over to remove an object from the floor was incidental to and in furtherance of Harris’s employment as a custodian, the Court of Appeals of Georgia deferred to the Board’s finding of compensability. Harris v. Peach County Bd. of Comm’rs, 296 Ga.App. 225 (2009).
A different result was reached in a case where Susan Ward, a nurse, twisted her knee while turning around to get a patient some water to take medication. St. Joseph’s Hospital v. Ward, 300 Ga.App. 845 (2009). The Court of Appeals of Georgia relied on its decision in Chaparral Boats v. Heath, 269 Ga.App. 339 (2004), which held that there is no causal connection between the employment and the injury where the injury is “caused by a risk to which the employee would have been equally exposed apart from the employment.” Citing deference to the Board, the Court affirmed the appellate division’s finding that Ward “was not exposed to any risk unique to her employment by standing and turning.” The Court reconciled its opinion with the Harris decision by pointing out that the latter case presented evidence from which the Board could conclude that the employee was engaged in activity (i.e. bending to pick up an object) to which she might not have been equally exposed apart from her work.
It appears that Ward produced an unfair result in that one could make a valid argument that turning to retrieve water for a patient is just as incidental to one’s employment as bending to pick up an object. Perhaps if Ward’s supervisor had testified that a nurse’s job duties included providing water to a patient, the Court would have reached a different conclusion. Although the opinions offer little guidance as to what specific evidence is needed, the Court of Appeals of Georgia seems to require actual evidence, beyond a common-sense argument, that the injury-causing activity was related to the employee’s work.
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