Arkansas: Workers’ Compensation Exclusive Remedy for Fatal Shooting During Robbery

Substantial evidence supported the Commission’s finding that a restaurant employee was killed during the course and scope of his employment and, therefore, his survivors’ recover against the employer was limited to workers’ compensation death benefits, held an Arkansas appellate court. Evidence indicated that the deceased was serving a customer at the time of an armed robbery by two off-duty restaurant employees, that the deceased had not clocked out for the night and had duties at the restaurant that he would have needed to complete before leaving the premises, and that there was no history of animosity between the deceased and the two employees who robbed the employer’s restaurant (they were both subsequently convicted of robbery and capital murder). The deceased was within the time and space boundaries of his employment; the exclusive remedy provisions of the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Act limited recovery to a claim under the Act.

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 Herrera-Larios v. El Chico 71, 2017 Ark. App. 650, 2017 Ark. App. LEXIS 731 (Nov. 29, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 100.01.

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