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Bender v. Dakota Resorts Management Group6/29/2005
674 NW2d 518. However, Norton is distinguishable. In Norton, the claimant was a full-time school bus driver who was transporting students on an extra-curricular ski trip. The school bus driver was offered and accepted a free, extra lift ticket and was injured while skiing. Id. . On appeal, we held that the school bus driver "stepped aside" from her employment purpose when she went skiing. Id. . Unlike here, the employee in Norton failed to establish that skiing was an activity in which she might reasonably be expected to engage or that the activity was expressly or impliedly authorized by the contract or nature of her employment. Id. Furthermore, there was no showing that the employee's act of skiing was a "regular incident of the employment." See 2 Arthur Larson, Larson's Workers' Compensation Law, § 22.01, 22-2 (1999). Therefore, our holding in Norton is not controlling here.
[ .] Based on the above, the injuries arose out of and in the course of the employment and we reverse and remand.
[ .] GILBERTSON, Chief Justice, and KONENKAMP and MEIERHENRY, Justices, concur.
[ .] ZINTER, Justice, concurs specially.
ZINTER, Justice (concurring specially).
[ .] The development of the law in the area of recreational activities is remarkable. I concur specially because in this case the employer specifically approved the recreational activity, it was a regularly practiced incident of employment, and it occurred on the employer's premises. All of these requirements are crucial to establishing a work connection, and the last requirement is most important. As Professor Larson explains:
It has been repeatedly and consistently observed that in borderline course-of-employment situations, such as going and coming, or having lunch, the presence of the activity on the premises is of great importance. Consistency is maintained by applying the same distinction to recreation cases: recreational injuries during the noon hour on the premises have been held compensable in the majority of cases. While, as noted in connection with the other situations mentioned, there is a tinge of the arbitrary about this distinction, there is also a sound basis in both theory and reality for it. When seeking for a link by which to connect an activity with the employment, one has gone a long way as soon as one has placed the activity physically in contact with the employment environment, and even further when one has associated the time of the activity somehow with the employment. This done, the exact nature and purpose of the activity itself does not have to bear the whole load of establishing work connection, and consequently the employment-connection of that nature and purpose does not have to be as conspicuous as it otherwise might. Conversely, if the recreational activity takes place on some distant vacant lot, several hours after the day's work has ceased, some independently convincing association with the employment must be built up to overcome the initial presumption of disassociation with the employment established by the time and place factors.
2 Arthur Larson, Larson's Workers' Compensation Law § 22.03 , 22-5 (2001) (footnote omitted).
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