1. The Tennessee Supreme Court in Wait (and most courts in workers’ compensation cases) required a two-part showing that the injury must “arise out of” and “ in the course of” employment.
a. Explain those two standards.
b. Must an employee be engaged in an activity that benefits the employer in order to be “in the course of employment?” Explain.
c. Why did the court conclude that Wait’s injuries did not arise out of her employment?
2. Why did the court conclude that the “street risk” doctrine did not apply to Wait’s injuries?
3. Fernandez, an exotic dancer, left her job drunk and was seriously injured in a crash while riding as a passenger in a car driven by another dancer. The crash came within one hour of leaving work. Her intoxication led to her decision to ride with her intoxicated coworker. Fernandez sought workers’ compensation. She claimed that her employer, Bottoms Up Lounge in Council Bluffs, Iowa, required her to socialize with male customers when not dancing and to generate at least two drinks per hour from customers. Dancers were not required to drink, but most dancers consumed six to eight drinks per night or more. Did Fernandez’s injury arise out of and in the course of employment so that she can recover workers’ compensation? Explain.
4. Joseph Smyth, a college mathematics instructor, was killed while driving his personal auto home from work. At the time, Smyth had student papers with him, which he intended to grade that evening. He often worked at home. Many faculty members took work home in the evenings. However, the college did not require that practice. Indeed, the college neither encouraged nor discouraged working at home. The widely adopted “going and coming rule” provides that employees injured while commuting to and from work, in general, are not covered by workers’ compensation.
a. Should Smyth (and other teachers) be exempted from the going and coming rule, thus permitting recovery by Smyth’s family? Explain.
b. Would you reach a different conclusion had a student been accompanying Smyth? Explain.
5. Casimer Gacioch worked at a Stroh Brewery. The company provided free beer at work. When he began work in 1947 he drank only three to four beers on the weekend. He was fired in 1974, by which time he was drinking 12 bottles of beer daily. After Gacioch’s death, his wife sought workers’ compensation benefits. The evidence indicated that Gacioch had a predisposition to alcoholism but was not an alcoholic at the time he was hired. How would you rule on the widow’s workers’ compensation claim? Explain.
Even though the plaintiff’s injuries occurred “in the course of” her employment, we nevertheless hold that they did not “arise out of” her job duties with the ACS. The phrase “arising out of” requires that a causal connection exist between the employment conditions and the resulting injury. With respect to whether an assault arises out of employment, we have previously delineated assaults into three general classifications: