No Workers’ Comp for Employee Injured When Vehicle Crashed Through Her Office Wall

An employee at the Virginia Department of Health who was seriously injured when a vehicle crashed through the wall of her first floor office is not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.

The Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission (WCC), in a 2-1 decision, affirmed the denial of benefits by a deputy commissioner because the employee did not suffer a compensable accident arising out of her employment.

The claimant testified she was sitting at her desk at the time of the accident. Her desk faces the glass window overlooking the parking area but because her desk was positioned to the right and off the center of the window, she was unable to see the approaching vehicle and had no warning that the collision was about to take place.

The employee argued that her injury arose out of her employment because she was performing work tasks at her desk in an office situated against the front of the building structure, directly in front of a bend in the roadway, which exposed her to an increased risk of the sort of injury she experienced.

Her argument was to no avail. Her employer denied benefits and she appealed. A deputy commissioner upheld the denial and the WCC has affirmed. They rejected her argument that the incident arose out of her employment because of the “increased risk” of injury posed by the location of her employer’s work site, the specific location of her office, and her employer’s work policies.

Two Cases

They found that her reliance on two cases where employees were also injured in crashes — Charter Oak Fire Ins. Co. v. Caudill (2015) and Green Hand Nursery, Inc. v. Loveless (2009) — was misplaced, distinguishing the facts in both cases.

In Loveless, the Court of Appeals of Virginia found “additional circumstances” that led to the conclusion that the claimant’s injury arose out of the employment. There, the claimant worked at a nursery on a road that had a 55 miles-per-hour speed limit. The claimant was occupied outside shutting off a series of sprinklers close to the road. She heard screeching tires, looked up, and saw a vehicle flying off the highway heading her way. She attempted to run to the tree line for safety, dodging potted plants on her way, but she was struck by the car when she was only one foot from the trees. The court found “the origin of claimant’s injury resulted from a peculiar condition related to her employment.” The court pointed to the factual findings that the claimant, “in shutting off the sprinkler, was distracted from the vehicle speeding toward her. She did not look up until she heard screeching tires.” The court also noted that the claimant’s escape was impeded by slippery weed mats and potted plants.

Thus, the Loveless court concluded that “in the instant case, claimant’s performance of her job . . . increased the risk of injury by diverting attention from the danger of the approaching vehicle.”

The facts of Caudill are similar to the current health department employee’s case. In Caudill, the claimants were sitting at their desks when their office building was struck by a vehicle. Their desks were attached to the wall on the side of the building next to a loosely defined parking area, with no designated parking spots or lines and no parking blocks or barriers between the parking area and the office building. About 50 to 100 vehicles drove through the area on a daily basis. Also there had been previous incidents in which a large delivery truck had rolled into the wall from the parking area, and another incident when a parked vehicle rolled into the building, cracking a few bricks.

In Caudill, the Court of Appeals affirmed that the injuries arose out of the employment based upon the “specific circumstances of their office location.” The court pointed to “several facts unique to the claimants’ workspace” including “the location, layout of, and traffic on employer’s property” which the court found “contributed to risk claimants faced when working at their desk station up against the brick façade of the office building, as required by employer.”

The deputy commissioner distinguished the current case from both Caudill and Loveless, finding that the health department employee’s arguments could apply to multiple employees located on the first floor in the same and nearby buildings in the complex where she worked. Furthermore, the evidence demonstrated that unlike the claimants in Caudill and Loveless, the area in which she was working was separated from the parking and driveway areas by a curb, a sidewalk, and a buffer zone of grass. There was also no evidence of prior, similar incidents in this area that would demonstrate tit was an area of increased risk for vehicular collisions.

In short, the deputy found that the evidence did not show that her office was located in an area of heightened risk for a vehicular incursion or that, like the nursery worker in Loveless, conditions of her workplace interfered with her ability to escape the collision.

The WCC seconded that conclusion. “[W]e agree with the deputy commissioner the evidence fails to establish the claimant’s risk of injury by being struck by a vehicle was made more likely due to the configuration of the office park, the location of her office, or any other circumstances unique to the claimant’s work or workspace.”

Not all judges on the WCC agreed. A dissent by one judge argues that the WCC majority wrongly equated the “actual risk” doctrine applied in Virginia with the “increased risk” doctrine.

“The claimant established that the location of her desk near the outside wall of the building, facing a roadway which turned directly in front of it, and her inability to see an approaching vehicle, exposed her to the particular danger of being struck by a vehicle while working at her desk. Regardless of whether the record established the claimant’s risk of being struck by a vehicle was ‘increased’ due to these workplace conditions, it did establish that these conditions were a ‘contributing proximate cause’ of the claimant’s injury,” the dissent states.

According to the dissent, the evidence also showed that her location and workstation prevented any observation of an oncoming vehicle and precluded any anticipation of a route of escape, making her risk more dangerous and more obvious than that of the nursery worker in Loveless. “Having little time to respond to harm is better than having no warning of it at all,” the dissenting opinion added.

The dissent further criticizes the majority’s conclusions that because the office was in an office park with other buildings, this somehow mitigated the risk, and that the grassy area, the sidewalk, and the curb were of such a character as to eliminate or limit the risk of a vehicle striking the building. These rested on speculation. not evidence, the dissent said.

The WCC ruling is appealable to the Court of Appeals.

Topics Auto Workers' Compensation