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Ostrowski v. Wasa Electrical Services Inc.6/4/1998
. at 68, 502 P.2d at 1400. The employee in Pacheco was on an authorized coffee break when she joined some co-employees to go to the bank in order to cash her check. The court placed merit in the facts that it was a Friday afternoon, and the authorized coffee-break was the only time before the weekend that the employee could go to the bank. The car in which the employee was riding was struck by another car, approximately three blocks away from the employer's premises, fatally injuring the employee.
The court held that the employer gained a "benefit" from the coffee break because
a refreshed employee is often a more productive one. . . . An employer may derive substantial benefits from an employee who is allowed time away from the job to accomplish pressing personal business. Injuries occasioned by employees pursuing necessary personal matters off employer's premises are compensable in our view as work-connected, especially if the employer acquiesces in such practices.
Id. at 69-70, 502 P.2d at 1401 (emphases added).
Pacheco does not define a benefit to an employer in general, but seems to apply only to the fact-specific situation where an employee, while on an authorized break, pursues "necessary personal matters." Pacheco illustrates the fine line between a benefit to an employer that is tangible, and one that is intangible; in Pacheco, the benefit was something greater than increased employee morale, because it was authorized or encouraged by the employer and of a "pressing" nature to the employee.
We believe that any "benefit" received in the instant case was, however, too intangible to be determinative in this case, because we find no extra factors that would raise it above some intangible--and questionable--benefit to employee morale and efficiency. In fact, while it stretches the mind to ascertain what true benefit the after-hours drinking party conferred upon Wasa, it is not difficult to see that such a party did not benefit Wasa, in the employment context, in any way.
IV. Conclusion
Looking at the quantum of aggregate facts, we decide that the after-hours drinking party was not (a) causally connected to any duties or incidents of Ostrowski's employment, (b) expressly or impliedly condoned by Wasa, or (c) a benefit to Wasa. As such, the LIRAB's findings on this issue were not clearly erroneous as a matter of fact, or wrong as a matter of law.
"While the line may be hard to draw between what is or is not compensable, there is . . . a difference between employment itself, an incident of employment and an incident of an incident of employment." Pacheco, 54 Haw. at 78, 502 P.2d at 1405-06 (Levinson, J., Dissenting) (quoted in Tate, 77 Haw. at 108, 881 P.2d at 1254). We believe that Ostrowski's injury was an "incident of an incident of employment"; it was simply too far removed from the necessary elements of time, place and other independent factors to find the employer liable for compensation. Accordingly, we affirm the LIRAB's May 20, 1997 decision and order.
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