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Holland v. Coast Midwest Transport6/4/2003
ry `arises out of' employment. . . . ere the burden is on the employer to demonstrate that the injury was actually the result of a cause personal to the claimant.
The positional risk doctrine is generally applied in those instances where injuries result from risks that are categorized as neutral."
Id. at 931-32 (quotations and citation omitted).
Applying this doctrine to the case before it, the court found that the claimant's injury was the result of a neutral risk neither personal to her nor distinctly associated with her employment. The court noted that the injury would not have occurred but for the fact that the claimant's employment obligations placed her in the parking lot when she was injured. It then concluded that the employer had not carried its burden of demonstrating that the unexplained accident was the result of a condition personal to the claimant. It therefore held that the claimant was entitled to worker's compensation benefits.
Here, the Board found that Holland injured his knee when he went to his truck to retrieve information needed by his employer. After exiting his truck, he turned back toward the truck to verify that he had all of the necessary information and injured his knee. Holland's testimony supports this finding. It found:
"Like an employee with a cardiac condition who suffers a heart attack at work, the issue is whether the demands of Holland's employment created a risk of injury ; that is, whether his duties presented or created unique conditions exposing him to injury such as high heat or unusual or excessive weights."
Appellant's Appendix at 4. Because the Board concluded that Holland was not exposed to any unique risks by the requirements of his work and his injury could have happened anywhere, it determined that Holland's injury did not arise out of his employment.
Using the risk category analysis, we find that Holland's injury while walking in his employer's parking lot, as in Milledge, is not a risk intrinsic to his employment. Thus, Holland's injury is not a result of a risk that falls within the first category. Further, we do not believe that Holland's injury was the result of a risk personal to him, the second category mentioned in Milledge. Although Holland had a previous ACL injury, the evidence showed no connection between that injury and the instant one. The evidence showed that the previous ACL repair surgery on his right knee, performed over ten years prior to this injury, was successful, and that Holland subsequently resumed normal activities, including engaging in sports, without incident. In fact, Holland had suffered no symptoms with regard to his knee for at least five years prior to this injury. Like the diabetic claimant in Milledge, Holland may have had an underlying condition that acted as a complicating factor in his injury, but it alone was not a sufficient cause of the injury at issue. Thus, there is no evidence supporting the conclusion that Holland's injury was the result of a risk personal to him. Rather, the record gives no indication of what caused Holland to twist his knee. Accordingly, we conclude that Holland's injury was the result of a risk that was neither of a distinctly personal nor employment nature, a "neutral risk," and the positional risk doctrine, as explained in Milledge, applies.
The Board's decision was based on the principle that Holland had the burden of proof with regard to whether his injury "arose out of" his employment. However, the Milledge opinion subsequently clarified that in cases such as this, the claimant enjoys a rebuttable presumption that the injury arose out of his or her employment. Thus, Coast bears the burden of pre
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