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Holland v. Coast Midwest Transport6/4/2003
ued that the employee's injury did not arise out of her employment. The orthopedic surgeon who treated the claimant averred that the claimant's diabetes was a complicating factor, but the ankle injury that she sustained was the instigating fact that led to the amputation. The employer presented a report from another medical expert that the ankle injury was necessary, but not a sufficient cause, of the subsequent need for amputation.
The Board entered its judgment, determining that the claimant injured her ankle when either stepping down or twisting while turning to close the car door after arriving at work but before beginning her work and that the asphalt surface of the parking lot, where the injury occurred, was clean, dry, level and free of debris, and nothing about it would have caused or contributed to the claimant's injury. It concluded that the claimant failed to show any causal connection between her injury and her work duties and her injury therefore did not arise out of her employment.
On appeal, we affirmed the Board's decision. We explained that although the claimant injured her ankle on her employer's premises as she was on her way to commence her workday and therefore "in the course of" her employment, the evidence supported the Board's finding that nothing about those premises or the nature of her work there would have caused or contributed to her injury . Thus, we concluded that her injury did not "arise out of" her employment. "Put another way, her injury was not even the result of a `neutral' risk to which she was exposed on her employer's premises. "Milledge v. The Oaks, 764 N.E.2d 230, 236 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002), trans. granted, vacated by 774 N.E.2d 518. Thus, we concluded that the Board did not err in denying her application for benefits under the Act.
On transfer, our supreme court explained that risks incidental to employment fall into three categories: 1) risks distinctly associated with employment; 2) risks personal to the claimant; and 3) risks of neither distinctly employment nor distinctly personal character. It then explained that while risks in the first and third categories may be covered by worker's compensation, those personal to the claimant, caused by a pre-existing illness or condition unrelated to employment, are not compensable. The court then examined each category and analyzed whether the claimant's injury fell within it. For the first category, the court explained that the injury must be inherent in the work environment. It concluded that the claimant's injury, suffered while walking in the employer's parking lot, was not of this variety. The court then looked at the second category, risks personal to the claimant, and concluded that the evidence did not show that the claimant's ankle injury was the result of a pre-existing illness or injury. Although the claimant had suffered from diabetes for thirty years, she was taking medication for the illness and had no acute symptoms. The court concluded that the record simply did not give any indication as to what caused the claimant to twist her ankle. Accordingly, the court next looked to the approach used in various jurisdictions to treat such "unexplained" injuries. After comparing the various approaches, it concluded that Indiana should employ the positional risk doctrine in such cases. Under this doctrine,
"an injury arises out of the employment if it would not have occurred but for the fact that the conditions and obligations of the employment placed claimant in the position where he was injured. This but for reasoning is the foundation of the positional risk doctrine, under which if the `in the course of' employment element is met, then there is a rebuttable presumption that the inju
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