Assignment:
Chief Justice Barker
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND From October 1998 until September 3, 2004, the plaintiff, Kristina Wait, worked as Senior Director of Health Initiative and Strategic Planning for the American Cancer Society ("ACS"). Because of the lack of office space at its Nashville, Tennessee facilities, the ACS allowed the plaintiff to work from her East Nashville home. The plaintiff converted a spare bedroom of her home into an office, and the ACS furnished the necessary office equipment, including a printer, a facsimile machine, a dedicated business telephone line, and a budget to purchase office supplies. In all respects, the plaintiff's home office functioned as her work place. Not only did the plaintiff perform her daily work for the ACS at her home office, the plaintiff's supervisor and co-workers attended meetings at the office in her house. There is no evidence in the record with respect to any designated hours or conditions of the plaintiff's employment, nature of her work space, or other work rules.
Significantly, the plaintiff's work for the ACS did not require her to open her house to the public. In fact, during working hours the plaintiff locked the outside doors of her home and activated an alarm system for her protection. Unfortunately, however, on September 3, 2004, the plaintiff opened her door to a neighbor, Nathaniel Sawyers ("Sawyers"), who brutally assaulted and severely injured the plaintiff. The plaintiff met Sawyers in May or early June of 2004 at a neighborhood cookout she attended with her husband. Thereafter, Sawyers, who lived approximately one block from the plaintiff's home, came to the plaintiff's home for a short social visit on a weekend day in late June. The plaintiff and her husband spoke with Sawyers for approximately five minutes, and then Sawyers left.
In August, Sawyers came to the plaintiff's home on a weekday for a social visit; however, the plaintiff was preparing to leave her home office for a job-related television interview. The plaintiff told Sawyers that she was going to a business meeting. When Sawyers replied that he was on his way to a job interview in Nashville, the plaintiff allowed Sawyers to ride with her to his job interview. On September 3, 2004, the plaintiff was working alone at her home office. Around noon, the plaintiff was in her kitchen preparing her lunch when Sawyers knocked on her door. The plaintiff answered and invited Sawyers into the house, and he stayed for a short time and then left.
However, a moment later, Sawyers returned, telling the plaintiff that he had left his keys in her kitchen. When the plaintiff turned away from the door, Sawyers followed her inside and brutally assaulted the plaintiff without provocation or explanation, beating the plaintiff until she lost consciousness. As a result of this assault, the plaintiff suffered severe injuries, including head trauma, a severed ear, several broken bones, stab wounds, strangulation injuries, and permanent nerve damage to the left side of her body. On December 12, 2005, the plaintiff filed a complaint seeking workers' compensation benefits from Travelers Indemnity Company of Illinois, the insurer of the ACS. (The plaintiff did not name the ACS as a defendant.) The plaintiff alleged that the she was entitled to workers' compensation benefits for the injuries she sustained in the assault because the assault arose out of and occurred in the course of her employment with the ACS. The defendant [denied] that the injuries arose out of or occurred in the course of the plaintiff's employment.
Following discovery, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, which the chancery court granted. The chancery court concluded that the plaintiff's injuries did not arise out of or occur in the course of her employment with the ACS. Additionally, the chancery court noted that Sawyers "was not [at the plaintiff's home office] on any kind of business with the [ACS], nor was he really there on any kind of business with the [p]laintiff." The plaintiff appealed. We accepted review
II OMITTED-ED.
III. ANALYSIS A. The Workers' Compensation Act and Telecommuting
The Workers' Compensation Act ("Act"), codified at Tennessee Code Annotated sections 50-6-101 to -801 (2005), is a legislatively created quid pro quo system where an injured worker forfeits any potential common law rights for recovery against his or her employer in return for a system that provides compensation completely independent of any fault on the part of the employer. The Act should be liberally construed in favor of compensation and any doubts should be resolved in the employee's favor. However, this liberal construction requirement does not authorize courts to amend, alter, or extend its provisions beyond its obvious meaning.
Causal connection, the facts here do not establish that the plaintiff's employment exposed her to a street hazard or that she was singled out for her association with her employer. There is nothing to indicate that she was targeted because of her association with her employer or that she was charged with safeguarding her employer's property. Additionally, the plaintiff was not advancing the interests of the ACS when she allowed Sawyers into her kitchen, and her employment with the ACS did not impose any duty upon the plaintiff to admit Sawyers to her home. The plaintiff argues that had it not been for her employment arrangement, she would not have been at home to suffer these attacks. However, we have never held that any and every assault which occurs at the work site arises out of employment. Additionally, although Sawyers knew from a previous visit that the plaintiff was home during the day, there is nothing in the record which indicates that there was a causal connection between the plaintiff's employment and the assault.
Affirmed.
Questions
1. The Tennessee Supreme Court in Wait (and most courts in workers' compensation cases) required a two-part showing that the injury must "arise out of" and "in the course of" employment.
a. Explain those two standards.
b. Must an employee be engaged in an activity that benefits the employer in order to be "in the course of employment?" Explain.
c. Why did the court conclude that Wait's injuries did not arise out of her employment?
2. Why did the court conclude that the "street risk" doctrine did not apply to Wait's injuries?
3. Fernandez, an exotic dancer, left her job drunk and was seriously injured in a crash while riding as a passenger in a car driven by another dancer. The crash came within one hour of leaving work. Her intoxication led to her decision to ride with her intoxicated coworker. Fernandez sought workers' compensation. She claimed that her employer, Bottoms Up Lounge in Council Bluffs, Iowa, required her to socialize with male customers when not dancing and to generate at least two drinks per hour from customers. Dancers were not required to drink, but most dancers consumed six to eight drinks per night or more. Did Fernandez's injury arise out of and in the course of employment so that she can recover workers' compensation? Explain. See 2800 Corp. v. Fernandez, 528 N.W.2d 124 (Ia. S.Ct. 1995).
4. Joseph Smyth, a college mathematics instructor, was killed while driving his personal auto home from work. At the time, Smyth had student papers with him, which he intended to grade that evening. He often worked at home. Many faculty members took work home in the evenings. However, the college did not require that practice. Indeed, the college neither encouraged nor discouraged working at home. The widely adopted "going and coming rule" provides that employees injured while commuting to and from work, in general, are not covered by workers' compensation.
a. Should Smyth (and other teachers) be exempted from the going and coming rule, thus permitting recovery by Smyth's family? Explain. See Santa Rosa Junior College v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board and Joann Smyth, 708 P.2d 673 (Cal. S.Ct. 1985).
b. Would you reach a different conclusion had a student been accompanying Smyth? Explain.
5. Casimer Gacioch worked at a Stroh Brewery. The company provided free beer at work. When he began work in 1947 he drank only three to four beers on the weekend. He was fired in 1974, by which time he was drinking 12 bottles of beer daily. After Gacioch's death, his wife sought workers' compensation benefits. The evidence indicated that Gacioch had a predisposition to alcoholism but was not an alcoholic at the time he was hired. How would you rule on the widow's workers' compensation claim? Explain. See Gacioch v. Stroh Brewery, 466 N.W.2d 303 (Mich Ct. of Appeals, 1991).