Arkansas: Benefits Denied to Worker Injured in an On-Premises Fall During Break

Arkansas’ “arising out of and in the course of the employment” rule is one of the narrowest of any states. Generally, a compensable injury does not include an injury that was inflicted on the employee “at a time when employment services were not being performed” [Ark. Code Ann. § 11–9–102(4)(B)(iii), emphasis added]. Under Arkansas case law, an employee is performing employment services when he or she is doing something that is generally required by his or her employer. An Arkansas appellate court affirmed the denial of workers’ compensation benefits to a worker who, while on her way to the employer’s cafeteria to get a snack during a break, tripped on the edge of the employer’s carpet, fell, and sustained a fracture to her left hip and femur. She contended that though she was not directly benefitting her employer during her break, she was indirectly benefitting the employer by getting something to eat so that she could have energy to do the physical labor associated with her work. The Court noted that testimony indicated the worker had no medical condition that required her to have a mid-morning snack in order to work until lunchtime. Furthermore, there was testimony that the worker’s job was not particularly physically demanding, such that a snack would be necessary to continue working until she was able to eat lunch.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Fulbright v. St. Bernard’s Med. Ctr. Risk Mgmt. Res., 2016 Ark. App. LEXIS 447 (Sept. 21, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 3.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law