'Everyday injuries' covered under workers' comp in Illinois
The state Supreme Court ruled on whether common activities are compensable if those actions are expected during work duties.
The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that an employee’s injuries from common everyday activities, such as bending, kneeling, and reaching, are compensable under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act if the employee might reasonably be expected to perform those actions incidental to their assigned duties.
The accident
Kevin McAllister, the claimant, injured his right knee while he was working as a sous-chef at North Pond restaurant in Illinois. His job required him to check in orders, arrange the walk-in cooler, and preparing and cooking food.
On the date of the accident, McAllister was setting his station for the evening shift when a co-worker mentioned that he had misplaced a pan of carrots in the walk-in. When looking for the missing carrots, McAllister knelt down on the floor of the walk-in. When standing up from the kneeling position, McAllister felt his knee pop, the knee locked up and he could not straighten it. He discussed the injury with his boss, and then the general manager drove him to the hospital. He did not receive workers’ compensation benefits while he was off work after the injury from August 7 to September 15, 2014.
‘Neutral risk’
The arbitrator awarded workers’ compensation benefits to McAllister, finding that looking for misplaced carrots in the walk-in cooler was an act that the employer could reasonably expect a sous-chef to perform in order to fulfill his duties, and accordingly, the knee injury “arose out of” and occurred in the course of employment and thus is covered under Workers’ Compensation Act, 820 ILCS 305/1 et seq. (2014).
The employer sought review of that decision with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (The Commission), which set aside the arbitrator’s decision and found that McAllister failed to prove that his injury “arose out of” his employment because the injury arose out of a neutral risk which had no particular employment characteristics. So, the general public is at the same risk of suffering this injury as McAllister; his working situation did not increase the likelihood of injury. One commissioner dissented, stating that he would have affirmed the decision of the arbitrator.
The circuit and appellate courts affirmed. However, the appellate court was divided regarding how injuries caused by everyday activities were compensable under the Act. The majority of the appellate court favored an analysis found in Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Industrial Comm’n (1989), finding that an injury arises out of a claimant’s employment for purposes of the Act if, at the time of the injury, “the claimant was performing an act that he might reasonably be expected to perform incident to his employment or causally connected to what the claimant must do to fulfill his job duties, even if that act involves an everyday activity.”
But the majority decided that the injury did not arise out of his employment because the risk posed by standing up from a kneeling position while looking for something misplaced by a coworker was arguably not distinctly related to his employment. The concurring justices noted an analysis in Adcock v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comm’n (2015), which required the claimant to establish that his job duties required participation in everyday activities that caused the injury to a greater degree than the general public, even when the activity is directly related to the job duties.
Illinois Supreme Court decision
The Illinois Supreme Court agreed with the majority and held that Caterpillar Tractor contained the test that should be applied to analyze “whether an injury ‘arises out of’ a claimant’s employment when a claimant is injured performing job duties involving common bodily movements or routine everyday activities.”
The test contains two elements to be satisfied: (1) that the injury occurred in the course of the claimant’s employment, and (2) that the injury arose out of the claimant’s employment. “In the course of employment” refers to the time, place and circumstances of the injury. In this case, the employer did not dispute that the injury occurred while McAllister was performing activities that were in the course of employment. As for the second prong, an injury arises out of one’s employment if it originates from a risk connected with or incidental to the employment. A risk is incidental to employment when connected to what the employee has to do to fulfill their job duties. The Court explained that common bodily movements and everyday activities are compensable and employment-related when the activity that caused the injury had its origin in risks connected with employment “to create a causal connection between the employment and the accidental injury.”
The Court overturned Adcock and its progeny to the extent that they require the claimant to prove that they were exposed to a greater risk of injury than the exposure of the general public. The Court further found that McAllister’s injury resulted from a distinctly associated risk associated with his employment and was compensable. The Court held that the Commission’s finding that the claimant was injured by a neutral risk that was not related to his employment was against the evidence’s manifest weight.
The case is McAllister v. Illinois Workers’ Comp. Commission, 2020 IL 124848.
Editor’s Note: Generally, any employee’s activity within the “course and scope” of employment is considered to be work. “Course and scope” is a legal phrase that refers to an employee’s performance of job-related duties which vary from job to job. This case went to the Illinois Supreme Court because the injury suffered was one that the claimant could have suffered at home, while looking for something under his bed, for instance, and was not one that the employee was only at risk of exposure to in the workplace. The Court broke “risk” down into three categories (1) employment risks, which are distinctly associated with employment, (2) risks personal to the employee, which involves injuries caused by personal infirmities, and (3) neutral risks, which have no particular employment or personal characteristics. This last category includes incidents like lightning strikes and stray bullets.
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