O'Rourke v. Workers' Comp. Appeal Bd.
| Decision Date | 27 October 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 27 WAP 2014,27 WAP 2014 |
| Parties | Laura O'ROURKE, v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (GARTLAND). Appeal of Joshua Gartland. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Daniel Warren Inadomi, Esq., Andrew B. Klaber, Esq., The Chartwell Law Offices, LLP, Pittsburgh, for Joshua Gartland.
Michael E. DeMatt, Esq., Greensburg, for Laura O'Rourke.
Amber Marie Kenger, Esq., Kathryn McDermott Speaks, Esq., Workers' Compensation Appeal Board, for Workers' Compensation Appeal Board.
OPINION
In this unique workers' compensation case, this Court granted allocatur to determine whether the Commonwealth Court erred in finding Laura O'Rourke ("Claimant") met her burden of proving that she sustained a work-related injury in the course and scope of her employment when she was brutally stabbed by her son in the middle of the night while she was sleeping in her bedroom in her own home. While it is undeniable that these circumstances are tragic, we cannot conclude Claimant has shown her injuries are within the type of harm the Legislature intended to provide compensation for under the Workers' Compensation Act ("the Act")1 and agree with the Commonwealth Court dissent, infra, which states it "defied logic" to find this case to involve a work-related injury. O'Rourke v. WCAB (Gartland), 83 A.3d 1125, 1139 (Pa.Cmwlth.2014) (Leadbetter, J., dissenting). As a result, we reverse the Commonwealth Court's order.
Claimant was paid an hourly wage by accessAbilities, a state-funded program under the Department of Public Welfare (DPW), to provide attendant care for her thirty-three year old son, Joshua Gartland ("Employer"), who suffers from significant health issues related to his long-term drug use. This employment arrangement is guided by the consumer model of service delivery, which designates the individual requiring care as the official employer after he or she obtains a state tax identification number and a workers' compensation policy. As the employer, the consumer is responsible for hiring, training, disciplining, and terminating employees. The program acts as a payroll agent for any employees and ensures the employer's needs are met.
The parties' employment arrangement began several months after Employer had his leg amputated in 2007 at Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh and spent six months at the Riverside Rehabilitation Center. While Employer was placed at Riverside, Maria Phillips of the Three Rivers Center for Independent Living (TRCIL) informed Claimant of the availability of numerous programs that would pay her to care for Employer in her own home until Employer's physical condition allowed him to live independently. Although Claimant had not lived with Employer since he was fifteen years old, Claimant allowed Employer to move into her home on July 7, 2008.
Several weeks later, Employer and Claimant enrolled in accessAbilities. Claimant was hired to assist Employer with transfers, dressing
, bathing, wound care, taking medication, preparing meals, doing laundry, and transportation. Employer received funding to receive 64 hours of care each week, but did not qualify to receive nighttime or 24–hour care. However, given the parties' living arrangement, Employer requested care during evening hours if Claimant was awake. Claimant would then log her nighttime hours on the next day of work. Claimant typically worked 40 hours Monday through Friday and 12 hours per day on Saturday and Sunday. Claimant recorded her hours on a time sheet or through Halo, a computerized system that allowed Claimant to use an identification number to clock in and out each day.
On Friday, April 10, 2009, Claimant returned home at approximately 10:00 p.m. after attending her usual bingo night. Upon her arrival, Employer asked Claimant to prepare him something to eat. Employer and Claimant began to argue as Claimant wished to change her clothes before getting him food. Claimant changed her clothes, got Employer his food, and made up the couch as Employer's bed. Claimant went to her first-floor bedroom and went to sleep around 11:30 p.m. Approximately two hours later, at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 11, 2009, Employer burst into Claimant's bedroom, jumped on top of her, cut her throat, and stabbed her several times with a butcher knife. Each time Employer stabbed Claimant, he threatened, "I'll kill you, you fucking bitch." N.T. Hr'g, 7/2/09, at 82. Despite the violent nature of the attack, Claimant survived.
On May 7, 2009, Claimant filed a claim petition against Employer and the State Workers' Insurance Fund (SWIF) alleging she suffered a work-related injury in the course of her employment when she was stabbed by Employer while she was sleeping. Claimant asserted that as a result of the attack, she lost functioning in her left arm, sustained soft tissue damage, and suffers from psychological injuries. On October 27, 2009, Claimant filed a Petition to Review Medical Treatment/ Compensation Benefits, in which she averred she is unable to return to work as she requires medical treatment and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). SWIF filed an answer on behalf of Employer as it is responsible for any benefits owed to Claimant.2
The hearings before the Workers' Compensation Judge (WCJ) were bifurcated to initially determine whether Claimant sustained a work-related injury in the course of her employment. Claimant testified in person, explaining how the employment relationship came about and describing the attack in detail. Claimant admitted she did not understand why Employer attacked her as he did not have a history of violence. While Claimant acknowledged she and Employer had a disagreement hours before the stabbing concerning Employer's request for food, Claimant admitted the dispute "wasn't anything big." N.T. Hr'g, 7/2/09, at 74. When asked if she and Employer had issues that they argued about on a consistent basis, Claimant shared that Employer always asked her for money but she refused as she felt he would purchase drugs since he has had a drug problem since age sixteen. When asked if she believed Employer was on drugs during the attack, Claimant indicated that while Employer was prescribed pain medication, she had control of the medicine and was responsible for giving it to Employer. Claimant also shared that shortly before the stabbing, she was in the process of obtaining legal guardianship of Employer's eight-year old daughter.
Tonya Volkman, an accessAbilities coordination specialist, testified by deposition. Volkman explained how Claimant was hired by Employer to provide state-funded care under the consumer model of service delivery. Volkman indicated she met with Employer and Claimant to discuss Claimant's duties set forth in a service plan created by TRCIL, the agency that referred Employer to accessAbilities. Volkman affirmed that neither the service plan nor Claimant's job description contained any requirement that Employer's service provider sleep overnight in his home. Volkman clarified that Employer did not qualify to receive overnight care, which is reserved for cases where an individual suffers a traumatic brain injury
. Even if Employer qualified for 24–hour care, Volkman testified the provider would have been required to remain awake during the overnight shift. In addition, Volkman reviewed Claimant's timesheets and indicated Claimant never recorded late night or early morning hours of care.
In an interlocutory order dated August 4, 2010, the WCJ concluded Claimant's injuries were compensable under the Act. Initially, the WCJ acknowledged Claimant was not engaged in the furtherance of Employer's business or affairs at the time of her injury as Claimant was sleeping when she was attacked, Claimant did not routinely provide Employer care in the middle of the night, and Employer did not qualify to receive overnight care. Nevertheless, the WCJ found Claimant was entitled to compensation as "her employment required her to be on the employer's premises at the time that she sustained her injuries." WCJ Op., 8/4/10 at 6.
In addition, the WCJ found SWIF failed to establish the attack "was motivated by reasons that were strictly personal to [Claimant] and not related to their employment relationship." WCJ Op., 8/4/10 at 5. However, the WCJ also made a specific finding that Claimant's testimony "taken as a whole, did not establish [ ] that the attack occurred as a result of the argument over her changing her clothes before fixing [Employer] food on April 10, 2010." Id. at 4.3 The parties then litigated the remaining issues, including the extent of Claimant's injuries and the amount of compensation due. By order dated January 10, 2011, the WCJ awarded Claimant compensation of $466.16 per week beginning April 12, 2009, as well as 47 weeks of compensation for disfigurement. Both parties appealed.
On August 9, 2012, the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board (WCAB) reversed the WCJ's decision to award Claimant compensation. The WCAB held Claimant was not injured in the course of her employment as she was neither furthering Employer's business nor required by the nature of her employment to be on the premises at the time of her injury. WCAB Op., 8/9/12, at 4 (citing WCAB (Slaugenhaupt) v. U.S. Steel Corp., 31 Pa.Cmwlth. 329, 376 A.2d 271, 273 (1977) ). The WCAB reasoned that Claimant was no longer required by the nature of her employment to remain on the premises once she completed her work duties and went to bed. The WCAB found Claimant lost her "employee status" and became a resident of her home after she "embarked on a course of ‘recreation’ separate and distinct from the duties of her employment." WCAB Op. at 6. Moreover, the WCAB also determined Claimant failed to prove the attack was related to the employment relationship as there was no evidence to show why the attack occurred or Employer's motive for the attack.
In a published, en banc opinion filed on January 8,...
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