REFRESH YOURSELF:
THE PERSONAL COMFORT DOCTRINE IN
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
By:
Kevin L. Connors, Esquire
I. INTRODUCTION:
Universal
throughout workers’ compensation statutes, the personal comfort doctrine is a
real, and sometimes amusingly interesting, result-oriented principle ubiquitous
in workers’ compensation decisions and rulings, at times testing the boundaries
of compensability, as employees attending to personal needs, for comfort or
sustenance, to include work-time breaks for eating, drinking, using the
restroom, smoking, or otherwise seeking relief from discomfort, sustain
injuries for which compensation is then sought.
It is
necessity’s offspring, recognizing the need for both rest and refreshment, with
its genesis spawned by the policy consideration that “the real reason (for the
personal comfort doctrine) is that a working man must live and recognizing
this, the employer has provided both physical conveniences and their
opportunity for their use. Modern
industry conditions provide the real basis for compensation and should be
recognized. The Personal Comfort Doctrine,
(1960 Wis. L. Rev. 91, 92).
Simply
stated, the personal comfort doctrine judicially justifies that certain
on-the-job acts of personal comfort are “necessarily contemplated” to be
incidental to the employment itself, blanketing any inevitably attendant danger
with compensability. This doctrine, by
its very definition, incorporates a certain element of foreseeability as to
compensability, as it marries an accidental work injury with a necessary
personal comfort.
In the
eloquently-sculpted analysis of Professor Larson, the general rule concerning
the personal comfort doctrine can be thought of as follows:
“Employees, who within the time and space
limits of their employment, engage in acts which minister to personal comfort
do not thereby leave the course of employment, unless the extent of the
departure is so great that an intent to abandon the job temporarily may be
inferred, or, unless, in some jurisdictions, the method is so unusual and
unreasonable that the conduct cannot be considered an incident of the
employment”.
See 2 A. and L. Larson, Larson’s Workers’
Compensation Law § 21 (2002).
And the most
common personal comfort situations involve work breaks around food, drinking,
smoking, hygiene and toiletry functions, and fashion statements involving
clothing.
A. General
Rule:
The general rule, almost
universally applicable, subject to distinct jurisdictional relevance, is that
injuries occurring in the course and scope of employment, while furthering the
interests of the employer, are considered to be work-related and, therefore,
compensable, with workers’ compensation statutes providing for compensation
benefits that will include lost wages, and payment of reasonable, necessary and
related medical care expenses.
No less true, courts analyzing personal comfort cases are oftentimes
forced to distinguish between a brief, or minor detour or deviation, as opposed
to situations where the activity resulting in injury is one that must be
characterized as having broken or severed the chain of what is considered to be
the course and scope of employment, necessitating a factual/legal analysis as
to whether the injury occurred during an activity incidental to employment,
being one that benefits the employer by improving employee efficiency, as
opposed to one where the converse was true.
B. Personal
Comfort Awards in Pennsylvania:
The following are Pennsylvania
personal comfort cases where benefits were awarded, with compensability being
established:
·
Employee
injured in motor vehicle accident afterstopping for dinner with
co-employees while traveling from a construction site to obtain supplies and
drop off a co-worker was found to be a compensable injury under the
Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act(Employer’s Mutual v. Boiler Correction and
Repair, 964 A.2d 381 (Pa. Super. 2008).
·
Employee
working from an employer-approved home office, was awarded workers’
compensation benefits, when she fell down the stairs, in route to the bathroom,
for personal comfort(Verizon Pennsylvania v. WCAB, 900 A.2d 440
(Pa. Cmwlth. 2006).
·
Workers’
compensation benefits were awarded when an employee, while completing a
furniture delivery to a residence, sustained a traumatic brain injury, while attempting
to jump up and touch a basketball rim on the property, with the Pennsylvania
Commonwealth Court finding that “intervals of leisure activity during the work
day are deemed inconsequential departures from the act of delivering furniture
for the employer”(Baby’s Room v. WCAB, 860 A.2d 200 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2004).
·
A
momentary departure from working, to use a bathroom facility, did not remove
the employee from the course of employment.
(Montgomery Hospital v. WCAB, 793 A.2d 182 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2002).
·
InCarroll
v. WCAB, 750 A.2d 938 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2000), the employee was
awarded workers’ compensation benefits for loss of use of an eye, resulting
from a detached retina caused by the employee attempting to suppress a sneeze,
to avoid spreading germs to co-employees during a business meeting.
·
InCity
of Harrisburg v. WCAB, 616 A.2d 1369 (Pa. 1992), the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court found that a police officer who shot himself while cleaning his
weapon at home was in the course and scope of employment, as the police officer
had no place to store his weapon at work, and the Court ruled that a work
activity performed at home is notper se
outside the course and scope of employment.
·
InKovalchik
Salvage v. WCAB, 519 A.2d 543 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1986), an employee, killed
in a head-on collision driving a company car, in route to his home, after
stopping for drinks and then taking co-employees home, was found to have
sustained compensable fatal injuries, with workers’ compensation benefits being
awarded.
·
InDe’Agata
National v. WCAB, 479 A.2d 98 (Pa.
1984), an employee entering a luncheonette, to purchase a cup of
coffee, was found to have sustained compensable injuries, when shot in the head
and abdomen.
·
Shockingly,
an employee, who was shot and killed, after stopping his truck along a roadway
in order to relieve himself, was found to have sustained work-related injuries,
in the course and scope of employment, by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court
inWCAB
v. Borough of Plum, 340 A.2d 637 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1975).
C. Personal
Comfort Awards in Other Jurisdictions:
·
In Utah,
its Court of Appeals affirmed an award of workers’ compensation benefits to an
injured worker, notwithstanding the fact that the worker had been terminated,
after the worker had returned-to-work in a light-duty position, following the
employee’s work injury, with the employee having been terminated by the
employer for sending pornographic images to other employee’s cell phones, over a
company e-mail account.
Bizarrely,
the Utah Court rejected the employer’s argument that light-duty work continued to be available to the employee,
and that the employee’s termination forcause
should have been characterized as a constructive refusal of available light- duty work, due to the employee’s
improper activities.
·
An Illinois
“smoke break” case is illustrative of break-time accidents, as this case
involved an employee taking a break to smoke a cigarette, with the employer
having a designated smoking area on the floor below where the employee worked,
and there was only one stairway connecting where the employee worked to the
employer’s designated smoking area; in route to the smoking area, the employee
fell, and was injured, with the Illinois Court finding that the injury was
compensable, as it fell within the personal comfort doctrine, as the employee’s
injury was connected to their employment, the employee was not doing anything
unreasonable or dangerous when injured, with the employer being in control of
the premises, through designation of the smoking area.
·
InLevine
v. People’s Broadcasting, decided in 1965, the West Virginia Supreme
Court held that an employee who was attempting to raise himself from a toilet
seat by leaning on a wash basin, who was injured when a pipe broke, was found
to have been acting within the course and scope of his employment, with
workers’ compensation benefits awarded, as the Court held “that an employee is
within the scope of his employment as provided by the Act when he is
administering to his own health and comfort if that be reasonably necessary to
his employment, citing toArchibald v. Workmen’s Compensation
Commissioner (decided in 1916).
Moreover,
the West Virginia Court noted that an employee is “acting within the course of his employment when he is engaged
in doing, for his master, either the act
consciously and specifically directed or any act which can fairly and reasonable be deemed to be an ordinary
and natural incident or attribute of that act or
a natural, direct, or logical result of it.
If in doing such act, the servant acts negligently,
that is negligence within the course of the employment”.
·
Most
employers might think that this was a pretty crappy result!
·
In
Illinois, an employee who was injured attempting to dislodge a bag of Fritos
stuck in a vending machine on the employer’s premises was found to have
sustained a compensable and work-related injury, notwithstanding the chips
having been purchased by a co-worker, such that the employee seeking to
retrieve the bag of chips was not doing so for his own consumption.
The Illinois Commission applied
the personal comfort doctrine, in awarding workers’ compensation benefits.
This ruling survived appeal, with
the Illinois Appellate Court affirming the lower commission’s award of workers’
compensation benefits, as the Court found that the employee’s actions tracked a
line of “scope of employment” cases, expanding coverage to employees acting to
aid others in emergency situations, although the Court impolitely noted that
“what the instant case lacks in urgency, it makes up for in familiarity and
collegiality”.
Essentially, the workers’
compensation award survived the employer’s appeal, as the appellate court
concluded that the Commission could have reasonably concluded that the
employee’s manner of assisting the Frito-purchasing employee did not
necessarily cross the line of employment, potentially barring the award of
benefits for the Frito-saving employee.
See Circuit City Stores v. Illinois
Workers’ Comp. (7/9/09).
·
The
Washington Supreme Court, inBall Foster Glass v. Giovanelli, upheld
an award of workers’ compensation benefits to an traveling employee, who
regularly traveled around the country rebuilding and fixing furnaces for his
employer, when he, on assignment to a company plant in Seattle, was injured on his
day off, as he was headed to a park with his supervisor to go to a concert; on
crossing a street in front of the hotel, he was struck by a motor vehicle, and
was seriously injured.
The employer appealed the award
of workers’ compensation benefits, on grounds that the employee had not been
engaged in a recreational activity that had any business purpose behind
it.
Upholding the compensability of
the employee’s injuries, the Court relied upon the “commercial traveler rule”
or the “continuous coverage rule”, which is a rule that holds that a traveling
employee is considered to be in the course of employment during his or her
entire trip, except for a “distinct departure on a personal errand”.
Holding that distinguishing
between reasonable personal administrations and purely personal amusement
adventures can be difficult, the Washington Supreme Court nevertheless found
that compensation courts have routinely had little difficulty denying
compensation benefits for unusual or unreasonable activity, such as the denial
of compensation benefits for a Florida employee injured during a skiing trip,
at a resort 50 miles away from the hotel that the employee had been staying
in.
Although the employer in Foster
argued that the employee’s activity was a deviation from his employment, and
that his actions in crossing a highway without a right of way was an
“inherently dangerous” activity, the Washington Supreme Court rebuked that
argument, citing to the personal comfort doctrine as follows:
“The scope of activities covered by the
personal comfort doctrine depends on the particular circumstances of
employment. A traveling employee is
entitled to broader coverage than a non-traveling employee because a traveling
employee is in a significantly different position of risk than a non-traveling
employee. The non-traveling employee may
satisfy his personal needs without leaving the comfort of home. In contrast, the traveling employee must face
the perils of the street in order to satisfy basic needs, including sleeping,
eating, and seeking fresh air and exercise”.
·
In Vermont, workers’
compensation benefits were awarded to an employee who was injured during lunch,
while shooting off bottle rockets, with the Vermont Court finding that the
injury did fall within the scope of the personal comfort doctrine. See, Notte v. Rutland,
112 Vt. 498
(1942).
·
In Georgia,
a Claimant was awarded workers’ compensation benefits, when she injured her
knee, as she bent over to pick up a pill off the floor. The Claimant was 300 lbs., and her knee
buckled, causing her to fall, when she bent over to get the pill. The employer presented evidence that the
employee’s knee buckled because of an idiopathic condition. However, the Georgia Court awarded workers’
compensation benefits, finding the claim to have been compensable based on the
personal comfort doctrine, as the employee’s job was that of a custodian,
sometimes requiring her to pick items off the floor.
In granting compensation
benefits, the Court compared this fact scenario with cases where employees were
injured when getting food and drink, or using a restroom, while working.
See
Harris
v. Peach County Board, 674 S.E. 2ND 36
(2/11/09).
·
InLiberty
Northwest Insurance v. Nichols, when a 6 Or App 664 (2003), an employee
who broke his tooth while eating an employer-supplied piece of candy was
awarded workers’ compensation benefits, overcoming the employer’s defense that
the Claimant’s injury had not occurred within the course and scope of
employment, as the Oregon Board found that the employee’s injury occurred as he
was “eating while working”, and that the employee had not been engaged in
personal recreational or social activities.
·
InThompson
v. Keller Foundations, benefits were awarded to a Florida employee, a construction worker, who
was injured in an accident that occurred as he was driving home from work,
after stopping at a bar to shoot pool with co-workers. The claim was initially denied by the
insurance carrier, as well as by the workers’ compensation judge, but the appeals
court reversed the denial of compensation benefits, finding that the employee’s
injuries were indeed incidental to employment.
This case is illustrative, as the
injured employee was traveling for business.
Although travel to and from work is typically not compensable under the
“coming and going” rule, Courts take a more inclusive approach in evaluating
injuries, when an employee is traveling overnight for business.
In reversing the lower court
decision, the Florida Court stated:
“A traveling employee is deemed
to be in the continuous conduct of his employer’s business including those
times when he is not actually at work but is engaged in … normal and necessary
activities. Thus, so long as a traveling
employee’s injury arises out of a risk which is reasonably incidental to the
conditions of employment, the injury will be compensable. Although the appellant may have been engaged
in amusement activities immediately prior to the accident, the JCC did not make
any findings sufficient to conclude that the traveling construction worker was
not attending to a normal creature comfort and a reasonable necessity – driving
to dinner – when his injuries were sustained.”
This case illustrates the
inclusive 24/7 nature of overnight business travel, in terms of compensability.
·
In Washington, workers’
compensation benefits were awarded to an employee, inDial v. Taplett Fruit Co.,
when the employee was injured, as she was walking to her car, during a morning
rest break, to smoke a cigarette. As a
result of falling, she sustained a low back injury, with the employer denying
the claim, on grounds that the employee was not furthering the employer’s
business interests when she was injured.
Telling, the employer did allow its employees to smoke in their cars
during their rest breaks.
The Washington Court
concluded that the employee had not left the course of her employment, as she
was engaged in a “personal comfort that was reasonably incidental to her
employment”. So concluding, compensation
benefits were awarded to the employee.
·
InCooper
v. Barnickel Enterprises, the New Jersey Superior Court awarded
workers’ compensation benefits to an employee, who was injured while using a
company vehicle, that he was using to drive to get coffee. The employee was a master plumber and
foreman. He had driven to a job
location, to discuss the job details.
Arriving at the jobsite, the person that he needed to talk was not
available, and would not be so for almost 45 minutes. The employee decided to drive to a deli
about 5 miles away, to get some coffee.
In route to the deli, the
employee was injured in a motor vehicle accident, sustaining several injuries,
resulting in the New Jersey Division of Workers’ Compensation awarding workers’
compensation benefits to the employee. In
awarding benefits, the Court found that the employee had been “engaged in
exactly the kind of brief activity which if embarked on by an inside employee
working under set time and place limitations, would be compensable under the
personal comfort doctrine”.
·
And now,
a pregnant paws worthy of the Australian personal comfort case that “went
viral” on the Internet, being the case of the Australian public servant, who
sought, was denied, and has now been awarded workers’ compensation benefits, as
a result of her being injured while having sexual intercourse on a work-related
business trip.
Initially, her claim was denied
before the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAAT), which denied her
claim for workers’ compensation benefits, over the passionately poignant plea
of her salaciously libidinous lawyer, who argued that she had sustained her
injuries in the “ordinary prevue of human life”, and that she was not injured
while engaged in performing any activity of gross misconduct or self-harm, her
injury being no different than that of a traveling employee who might be
injured while bathing or seeking sustenance, an argument countered by the
employer arguing that her injuries were sustained in the course of “frolic of
the applicant’s own”, during the course of a “quintessentially private
activity”.
The employer argument being that
“having sex is a different kettle of fish”, clearly distinguishing the
“catching” from “caught”.
While the AAAT denied the
Claimant’s lascivious claim, the Claimant pressed onward, appealing to the
Federal Court of Australia, which, on April 19, 2012, overturned the AAAT,
setting aside the Tribunal’s lecherous denial, in the course of which the
Australian Court rendered 26 Findings, akin to what we refer to as Findings of
Fact, followed by an additional 29 Considerations, akin to our Conclusions of
Law.
In reliance upon personal comfort
precedence in Australian compensation law, the Court found in favor of the
employee seeking compensation for her sexual misfortune, holding as follows:
“Accordingly, it shall now be accepted that
an interval or interlude within an overall period or episode of work occurs
within the course of employment if, expressly or impliedly, the employer has
induced or incurs the employee to spend that interval or interlude at a
particular place or in a particular way.
Furthermore, the injuries sustained in such an interval will be within
the course of employment if it occurred at that place or while the employee was
engaged in that activity unless the employee was guilty of misconduct taking
him or outside the course of employment.”
Well,
that certainly settles it!
Exactly, where do we go
next? The simple rule being, that you
need not be working, to be considered “employed”.
Although true, the Australian
Court went to great lengths to diffuse the splatter effect of a case like this,
given that media and Internet buzz created by it, and its infinitely special
ability to replicate its affect across multiple jurisdictions, as it twies to
avoid being tantalized by tweetfulness.
And what might have happened,
with altered facts, if the Claimant, in fact, became pregnant and/or contracted
a sexually-transmitted disease, are compensation benefits actually owed to the Claimant?
The
answer is, of course, “it depends”.
D. Denied Personal Comfort Cases in Pennsylvania
What follows are illustrations of Pennsylvania
personal comfort cases where benefits were denied:
·
In theDepartment
of Labor & Industry v. WCAB, 977 A.2d 585 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2009), a
state employee on a paid break off of the employer’s premises, who was
attending to her own personal comfort, was not awarded workers’ compensation
benefits, as she was not injured in furtherance of the employer’s business or
affairs.
·
InGraves
v. WCAB, 983 A.2d 241 (Pa.
Cmwlth. 2009), an off-duty Philadelphia Housing Authority patrolman who
was shot in an altercation with an armed bar patron was not found to have been
engaged in police action in furtherance of the employer’s business when
injured.
·
InBrookhaven Baptist
Church v. WCAB, 912 A.2d 770 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2006), a church member and
trustee, who was also paid to cut grass on the church grounds, was found to be
outside the course and scope of his employment, when he was fatally burned
while destroying lawn trimmings that he had gathered from pruning the shrubs.
·
InWright
v. WCAB, 871 A.2d 281 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2005), an employee who was struck
while crossing a highway, as he attempted to retrieve personal items from his
own vehicle, was denied compensation benefits, as the Court found that the
employee was not required by his employment to be crossing a highway at the
time of the incident.
·
DUH!
·
InSchrif
v. WCAB, 658 A.2d 2 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1995), an employee who was dismantling
a hoist that the employer was permitting the employee to take home to use on a personal
home project, was denied workers’ compensation benefits, when he was injured
while dismantling the hoist, as the employer had given the hoist to the employee
as a courtesy, and the Court found that the injury had not occurred in the
scope of employment, nor did it further the employer’s interests.
·
InPesta
v. WCAB, 621 A.2d 1221 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1993), an employee was collecting
cans from the employer’s premises, intending to sell them, was not awarded
fatal claim benefits, when he was fatally injured, as he crossed the street, to
put the cans in a parked car.
·
InHabib
v. WCAB, 29 A.3d 409 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2011), the Pennsylvania Commonwealth
Court held that an employee, who sustained an injury to his eye, as he and
other employees, all laborers, were attempting to smash a bowling ball found
near the parking lot where they were working, with several employees having
used the bowling ball in a shot-put challenge, after which the employees took
turns trying to smash the bowling ball with a sledgehammer, with the injured
employee being injured when shattering the bowling ball as a piece of the shattered
ball flew into his eye.
The workers’ compensation judge,
awarded workers’ compensation benefits to the employee, finding that his
actions, while careless, had not taken him outside the course and scope of
employment, although the judge’s compensation award was vacated and reversed by
the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board, which found that the
employee had acted in violation of a positive work order, as his supervisor had
told him to “knock it off”, further telling the employee that he would not take
the employee to the hospital, if the employee was injured hitting the
ball.
On further appeal to the Pennsylvania
Commonwealth Court, the Court held that the employee’s injury was not
compensable, as it occurred while the employee was violating a positive work
order, further holding that 3 requirements are necessary to bar an injury for
violation of an employer work order, including:
a) that the injury must be caused by the
violation of the work injury;
b) that the employee must know about the
positive work order; and,
c) that the Order must implicate an
activity not connected with the employee’s work duties.
E. Personal
Comfort Denials in Other Jurisdictions:
The following claims involve
Courts denying personal comfort claims, finding that the injuries had not
occurred within the course and scope of employment, and that the injured employees
had deviated from their normal work activities:
·
In
Indiana, a morbidly obese long-term employee, weighing over 360 lbs. was not
found to have been engaged in an “activity of daily living”, when she suffered
a cracked femur as she tried to get herself out of a booth in a university
cafeteria, during an employee appreciation dinner. Although she was successful in securing an
award of workers’ compensation benefits from the first level factfinder, on
appeal, the appellate court held that her injury was personal to her, and that
there had been no increased risk created by her work environment, with the
Court further observing that her pre-existing physical condition probably
contributed to her injuries, and undoubtedly hampered her recovery, resulting
in her injuries being found to be personal, and not work-related.
·
In a Florida case, in
Galaida v. AutoZone (9/27/04), an employee was denied workers’
compensation benefits, when he was injured on a smoke break in the company
parking lot. Although the employer
allowed employees to take smoke breaks, the employee was getting cigarettes out
of his car, when a gun fell out of his car, as he opened the car door, the gun
discharged, and shot him in the foot.
The employee was denied workers’ compensation benefits on a deviation
from course of employment theorem, which is an extension of the violation of
positive work order rule, as the employer had a policy against possessing
firearms on company premises.
On appeal, the appellate court
held:
“The personal comfort doctrine incorporates a
foreseeability element to the cause of injury.
Thus, inHolly Hill Fruit Products, 473 So. 2nd A29 (1985),
an employee was injured while crossing a street to purchase cigarettes was held
to have sustained a compensable injury because the “trip was a foreseeable and
non-prohibited refreshment break activity, and the employer’s authority over
Claimant was not significantly dissipated during the course of the trip”.
“Being exposed to a firearm, however, is not
a foreseeable consequence of an authorized cigarette break, especially when the
possession of a firearm is strictly prohibited by the employer. Moreover, Galaida’s possession of a firearm,
in violation of his employer’s policy, was not conducive to the employer’s
interests. Thus, he should not benefit
from the doctrine.”
·
TheOregon
Supreme Court in Roberts v. SAIF, 341 Or
48 (2006) denied workers’ compensation benefits to an employee who was
injured while riding a motorcycle around the lot of his employer’s car
dealership, with the Oregon Court finding that the employee’s injury was not
compensable or work-related, applying the following analysis:
“Texturally ORS 656.005(7)(b)(B)
raises three questions. The first is
whether the worker was engaged in or performing a “recreational or social
activity”. The second is whether the
worker incurred the injury “while engaging in or performing, or as a result of
engaging in or performing,” that activity. The final question is whether the
work engaged in or performed the activity “primarily for the worker’s personal
pleasure” if the answer to all of these questions is “yes”, then the worker
cannot recover”.
The Oregon Supreme Court
distinguished between activities performed for personal pleasure as opposed to
activities performed for personal comfort.
F. The Smoking Duck:
That’s right, a smoking duck is a loaded fowl.
So, you as the benevolent employer, must balance stockholder demands
against employee retention and productivity.
So what are you looking for, when a claim is reported to you, that seems
to fall along the fault lines of personal comfort?
Well, from a practical and pragmatic perspective, it is axiomatic that
the doctrine of common sense, not always applicable in a no-fault compensation
system, be applied, as otherwise logic and reason fall prey to the collusive
dark ages of intellectual chaos. The
relevant analytical template begins with a description of the activity in
question, to include lunch breaks, on and off premises, supplied or not by the
employer, drinking, smoking, use of toilet facilities, washing hands, changing
clothes, and seeking relief from heat, cold, or discomfort, not to include the
supervisor’s baneful eye.
Garnish the described activity in question with its time, location and purpose,
to determine if, during work hours, after work hours, on your premises, off
your premises, during some type of employment-related trip or travel,
considering its purpose, the catch all being, was the activity under the
compensation microscope advancing your business interests.
Then grab your trusty employee handbook, check the described activity in
question against permissive and non-permissive stuff. Did you give permission for the activity, or
does it violate a work or safety order?
II. LOOSE ENDS:
·
Compensability
is in the eye of the judge;
·
It is a
doctrine as ancient as workers’ compensation law;
·
Universally,
it is a doctrine based on decisional authority, untethered to any statutory
provisions;
·
Telecommunications
expand the scope of both personal comfort and personal discomfort, requiring an
intense analysis by the employer as to whether the injury occurred within the
course and scope of employment, whether the injury fell within the employee’s
job description, whether it occurred in furtherance of the employer’s business
interests;
·
This doctrine
is intended to balance the personal needs of the employee against the business
interests of the employer, so plan accordingly.
