Hospital employee secures benefits for injury between parking lot, workplace
The Illinois Appellate Court, First District, affirmed the Illinios Workers' Compensation Commission’s holding that a claimant’s trip-and-fall injury while walking from her employer’s parking lot to the workplace arose out of and in the course of her employment.
Where an injury to a worker arriving for work takes place in an area of the employer’s premises that constitutes a usual access route for employees and is caused by some special risk or hazard located on the premises, the “arising out of” requirement is satisfied.
A hospital employee had just parked her car and was walking from the parking garage into the outpatient care center when she tripped and twisted her knee on a metal strip located in a walkway threshold between the two buildings.
She was on her way to an 8:30 a.m. mandatory monthly service meeting on the fourth floor and was carrying three books in a backpack, her purse and a crock pot. As she had in the past, she was bringing food to the meeting. The Commission awarded benefits, finding the claimant’s injuries arose out of and in the course of her employment. The appellate court affirmed, reasoning that the injury took place in an area of the employer’s premises that constituted a usual route for employees and was caused by a special risk or hazard located on the premises.
On appeal, the employer argued that the claimant’s testimony that she tripped on the metal strip lacked credibility and was contradicted by an emergency room nurse. The court noted that it is the function of the Commission to judge the credibility of witnesses and resolve conflicting evidence. The Commission found that the claimant tripped over the metal strip and that the height of the strip constituted a hazardous condition. Contrary to the employer’s assertion, the Commission did not find the claimant’s testimony so patently unbelievable that its reliance on such testimony was clearly erroneous. Furthermore, because the injury occurred in a walkway connecting the workplace with the employee-designated parking area, the Commission could reasonably infer that the walkway was a usual access route for employees. The court concluded that where, as here, an injury to an employee arriving for work takes place in an area of the employer’s premises that constitutes a usual access route for employees and is caused by special risk or hazard located on the premises, the “arising out of” requirement is satisfied.
The court went on to also affirm the Commission’s finding that the claimant’s accidental injuries were causally related to her condition of ill-being. The fact that the claimant’s had a right knee condition does not mandate the conclusion that her preexisting condition was the sole cause of her current condition of ill-being, particularly in light of the fact that the employer offered no expert medical evidence in support of such a conclusion. The claimant’s testimony and the records of her medical treatment provided sufficient circumstantial evidence to support the Commission’s conclusion that the claimant’s current condition of ill-being was causally related to her work accident.
