Does workers' compensation cover a poisonous spider bite?
A bite from a brown recluse spider was the center of a Virginia workers' compensation dispute.
Last week, the Court of Appeals of Virginia decided whether a claimant was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for injuries resulting from a spider bite that occurred while she was working.
At the time she suffered her injury, in February 2018, Irma Housden had been working at James Madison University in Virginia as an administrative assistant for 37 years. Housden worked on the third floor, in an office space that had formerly been a high school. The boiler room of the building Housden worked in had been under construction since December 2017.
When Housden got to work on the morning of February 13, 2018, she claims she saw two spiders on a counter. She killed those spiders but failed to administer a fatal blow to a third spider she saw on a cabinet. Later that day, while speaking with a co-worker, Housden felt a bite on her foot. She exclaimed that she had been bitten and noted at least two bites on her foot. She went to the emergency room where the doctor noted swelling and redness on the injured foot. Housden identified the spiders in the office to be poisonous brown recluse spiders, based on pictures. The attending doctor also indicated in medical records that a brown recluse bite was suspected. Housden was admitted to the hospital and underwent surgery for the bites and was not released until February 22, 2018.
Housden filed for workers’ compensation benefits based on the bites. Later that year, an evidentiary hearing was held where several university employees testified to seeing spiders in the building, specifically after construction began in December.
The university hired a pest control specialist to testify that he had never received a complaint of a spider infestation in the building and had never seen a brown recluse spider at any location on the university campus. He also testified that he could not find proof of any brown recluse spiders after the incident occurred.
The deputy commissioner found that Housden failed to prove that her injury arose from her employment and denied her workers’ compensation benefits. On review, a majority of the full commission reversed that finding.* The appeals court also found that it was credible that the employer was aware of the spiders’ presence in the building before the incident occurred, and that Housden proved the injury arose from her employment.
The university argued that the presence of the poisonous spiders before February 13, 2018, could not be proven, but the appeals court determined that the presence of the spiders only needed to be established for a time period before the incident, not before the day of the incident.
*A dissenting opinion wrote that the “evidence was insufficient to establish a ‘critical link’ between the conditions of the workplace and the injury suffered by Housden.
The case is James Madison Univ. v. Housden, No. 1252-19-3, 2020 Va. App. LEXIS 63 (Ct. App. Mar 10, 2020).
Editors Note: Virginia employs an “actual risk” test to determine if an injury “arises out of” employment. The actual risk is a hybrid between the increased risk and peculiar risk tests, under which an employee just has to prove that at her job, and because of her job, she is at a greater risk of injury than the general public and that the work required by the employer and the resulting injury are causally connected.
In this case, the court determined that the injury would be covered under workers’ compensation because as an administrative worker in an office building, the claimant should have had very little to no exposure to poisonous spiders, and her exposure was more than what the general public would be exposed to in a similar situation.
A poisonous spider bite suffered by a university administrative assistant in 2018 is a compensable workers’ compensation injury, as the woman’s previous reports of spiders in her building prove her employer exposed her to the risk of spider bites, an appeals court in Virginia ruled.
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