Oregon: Eye Injury from Exploding Energy Drink is Compensable

Liberally citing Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 4.01, et seq., an Oregon appellate court found substantial evidence supported a finding by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that awarded benefits to an employee who sustained injuries to his eye when the bottle cap on an energy drink exploded as he was about to consume it during a mandatory paid break from his duties. Agreeing with the Board that the risk of injury was not personal to the employee, despite the fact that he had brought the energy drink on his own, the court noted that the employer did not supply any drinks for the workers during their breaks. It could hardly be surprised that they brought their own. This was not an instance of imported danger., citing Larson, § 9.04[5]. Even if it had been an imported risk, that would not defeat compensability since the employer had acquiesced in the sort of activity that caused the employee injury.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See SAIF Corp. v. Chavez-Cordova (In re Chavez-Cordova), 314 Ore. App. 5, 2021 Ore. App. LEXIS 1132 (Aug. 18, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, §§ 4.01, 9.03.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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