Hospice Family Care v. Allen
| Decision Date | 10 June 2016 |
| Docket Number | 2140861. |
| Citation | 218 So.3d 1222 |
| Parties | HOSPICE FAMILY CARE v. Joseph ALLEN, dependent spouse of Suzanne Sharp Allen, deceased. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
Frederick L. Fohrell and Christopher L. Lockwood of Wilmer & Lee, P.A., Huntsville, for appellant.
J. Barton Warren of Warren & Simpson, P.C., Huntsville, for appellee.
Hospice Family Care ("HFC") appeals from a judgment entered by the Madison Circuit Court in favor of Joseph Allen, the widower and dependent spouse of Suzanne Sharp Allen ("the employee"), pursuant to the Alabama Workers' Compensation Act, § 25–5–1 et seq., Ala.Code 1975 ("the Act").
The employee died in an automobile accident on Monday afternoon, February 3, 2014. On March 6, 2014, Allen filed a complaint in the circuit court against Shonja Tammy Pogue, David Maples, and Allstate Insurance Company ("Allstate"). Pogue, Maples, and Allstate each filed answers to Allen's complaint.1
On April 14, 2014, Allen filed an amended complaint in which he added HFC as a defendant and sought an award of death benefits and burial expenses pursuant to the Act. HFC requested a separate trial, and it filed an answer to Allen's amended complaint.2 On November 25, 2014, the circuit court entered a pretrial order in which it determined, among other things, that "[t]he workers' compensation case will be tried separately."
A two-day trial on the workers' compensation action began on March 2, 2015, and, on June 19, 2015, the circuit court entered a judgment.3 The circuit court concluded that the employee had been an employee of HFC, that Allen had been wholly supported by the employee at the time of her death, that the employee had been a "traveling employee," that the employee had been acting in the scope of her employment at the time of her death, and that there existed no substantial deviation from her employment that would bar recovery under the Act. The circuit court also concluded that certain policies of insurance were neither intended nor contemplated "to be substitute coverage for the requirement of HFC to provide workers' compensation benefits through a self-insured program, comp insurance or any other plan." The circuit court awarded Allen $6,500 in burial expenses, $51,254.64 (including attorney fees) in accrued benefits, and $605.09 per week (excluding attorney fees) in future benefits for 428 weeks. HFC filed a timely notice of appeal, and it requested oral argument, which was held by this court.
In its appellate brief, HFC argues that the circuit court erred by awarding benefits to Allen pursuant to the Act because, it contends, the claim is barred by the going and coming rule, the claim is barred because the employee died in an accident after completing a personal errand, the circuit court failed to properly apply certain provisions of the Act, the circuit court failed to award a setoff for certain insurance benefits paid to Allen, and the circuit court awarded an amount in excess of the statutory limit on burial expenses.
MasterBrand Cabinets, Inc. v. Ruggs, 10 So.3d 13, 16–17 (Ala.Civ.App.2008).
The employee was a registered nurse employed by HFC as a day-shift nurse. Day-shift nurses worked from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The employee's daily responsibilities as a day-shift nurse included driving to the residences of and providing care to approximately four patients, recording a voice message at the end of the shift regarding each patient's condition for the benefit of a night-shift nurse, entering the billing codes of services provided for insurance purposes, and transcribing medical information regarding each patient on a shared computer database ("charting"). On average, charting, which was mandatory within 24 hours of a home visit, required 2 to 3 hours of work per day. Charting could be done anywhere a laptop computer could be used.
On the afternoon of the automobile accident, the employee had telephoned Allen to tell him that she was on Winchester Road on her way from her last patient's residence to their residence on Buddy Williamson Road, which was located off Winchester Road. At that time she had neither charted, nor entered the billing codes, nor recorded the voice message. The employee informed Allen that, after she stopped at a pharmacy on Winchester Road to pick up a personal prescription, she would drive home. A document offered into evidence demonstrated that a prescription had been filled at a pharmacy on Winchester Road on February 3, 2014. The employee was in her vehicle traveling north on Winchester Road toward her home at a location past the pharmacy, but before the turn to Buddy Williamson Road, when her vehicle was struck by a southbound vehicle that entered her lane. The time of injury was listed as 3:46 p.m. The employee was pronounced dead at the scene at 4:10 p.m.
HFC had provided life insurance and accidental-death insurance for the employee at no additional cost to her, and the employee had also elected to purchase an additional $100,000 life-insurance policy. Allen and the employee's adult daughter, Lauren Sharp, were the beneficiaries of those policies, which included a $50,000 payment from the additional $100,000 life-insurance policy. Allen incurred burial expenses in the amount of $7,474.
Additional testimony presented at the trial demonstrated that HFC had provided each nurse employed by it with a portable laptop computer and a cellular telephone. Vehicles were not provided. HFC paid mileage; however, mileage from the location of an employee's last home visit to an employee's residence was not paid. Allen testified that the employee had not routinely arrived home from work at the same time each day. He said that her work schedule depended on the needs of her patients, that she usually placed a 20–to 30–minute telephone call to HFC when she got home, and that she used her laptop computer at home for charting. Allen said that the employee usually charted for approximately two hours each evening and that she regularly talked to the family members of her patients on the telephone or went to patients' residences after 4:30 p.m.
Debra Chandler, the HFC director of nursing and the employee's supervisor, testified that charting was mandatory within 24 hours of a home visit but that a nurse could complete his or her charting at any physical location he or she chose. However, according to Chandler, because of the character of the neighborhood where the office of HFC was located, nurses "were discouraged to come back to the office" to complete their charting, if it was "close to dark," because Chandler "did not feel like they would be safe" to come to the HFC office alone. Chandler said:
Michelle Millirons, the director of human resources for HFC, confirmed that charting could be done anywhere. Millirons said that a nurse could chart in a patient's residence or driveway, at his or her residence, or at the HFC office. Kirsten Langston, the quality coordinator and acting compliance officer for HFC, testified that the amount of time necessary for charting varied but that, on average, charting required up to three hours per day. Donna Davenport, the HFC coordinator of volunteers, said that the voice-mail message could be placed from any location.
Millirons and Jamie Posey, the director of finance for HFC, each testified that a day-shift nurse who had finished his or her home visits could go home before 4:30 and that the pay of a nurse—a salaried employee—would not change. Langston testified that nurses were also allowed to complete a personal errand, like picking up a...
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Hospice Family Care v. Allen (Ex parte Hospice Family Care)
...in part and dissenting in part).As set out in more detail in the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals, Hospice Family Care v. Allen, 218 So.3d 1222 (Ala.Civ.App.2016), one of the issues in this case is the applicability of the Alabama Workers' Compensation Act, § 25–5–1 et seq., Ala.Code 1......