62 Pa. Commw. 556 | Pa. Commw. Ct. | 1981
Opinion by
The hotel Hyatt House here appeals from the order of the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board granting benefits to the claimant, Solomon Kamara. We reverse.
The facts are undisputed. The claimant, who was employed as a steward by the Hyatt House, was injured while at work on October 21, 1978, when a tray fell on him from a cart he was pushing, hurting his left eye and breaking his glasses. Since the injury occurred at approximately 11:00 p.m., near the end of his 3:30 p.m. to midnight shift, the claimant’s supervisor instructed him to stay at work until the end of the shift when he punched out on his time card. The
Section 301(c) (1) of The Pennsylvania Workmen’s Compensation Act, Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S. §411(1) provides:
The terms ‘injury’ and ‘personal injury,’ as used in this act, shall be construed to mean an injury to an employe, regardless of his previous physical condition, arising in the course of his employment and related thereto, .... The term ‘injury arising in the course of his employment,’ as used in this article, shall not include an injury caused by an act of a third person intended to injure the employe because of reasons personal to him, and not directed against him as an employe or because of his employment; but shall include all other injuries sustained while the employe is actually engaged in the furtherance of the business or affairs of the employer, whether upon the employer’s premises or elsewhere, and shall include all injuries caused by the condition of the premises or by the operation*559 of the employer’s business or affairs thereon, sustained by the employe, who, though not so engaged, is injured upon the premises occupied by or under the control of the employer, or upon which the employer’s business or affairs are being carried on, the employe’s presence thereon being required by the nature of his employment.
The following are succinct statements of the law pertinent to this case:
Whether [a claimant] was in the course of his employment when fatally injured is a question of law to be determined on the basis of the facts: Wolfingbarger v. Addressograph-Multigraph Corp., 188 Pa. Superior Ct. 136, 146 A.2d 309. In resolving that issue, there is no formula which may be applied to all cases: Rybitski v. Lebowitz, 175 Pa. Superior Ct. 265, 104 A.2d 161. Where the injury occurs off the premises of the employer, compensation may not be awarded unless the employe was actually furthering the employer’s business: Anetakis v. Salvation Army, 191 Pa. Superior Ct. 268, 156 A.2d 590. The burden to establish such fact is upon the claimant: Smith v. Frederick Investment Co., 152 Pa. Superior Ct. 534, 33 A.2d 510.
Newman v. Congregation of Mercy and Truth, 196 Pa. Superior Ct. 350, 352-53, 175 A.2d 160, 161 (1961).
Going to or from work is not generally considered as furthering the affairs of the employer. Palko v. Taylor-McCoy Coal & [Coke Co., 289 Pa. 401, 137 A. 625 (1927)]. Exceptions to this rule have been recognized only where the contract of employment includes transportation to and from work or if the employee does not have a fixed place of work or if he is on a special mission for his employer.
Claimant Kamara from the time he left the Medical Center Pavilion was going home from work. His contract of employment did not include transportation and his employer had not provided him with transportation from the Central Medical Pavilion to his home. His fixed place of work was at Hyatt House. Therefore, in order to recover he was required to place himself within the remaining exception to the general rule that injuries sustained while going from work are not compensable — that provided for the worker who while going from work was on a special mission for his employer, or as otherwise stated, whose “trip home [was] not simply for the convenience of the employe.” LoPresti v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board, 35 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 7, 11, 384 A.2d 1017, 1019 (1978). We believe that Kamara clearly failed to demonstrate that from the time he left Central Medical Pavilion he was on a mission for his employer or was doing otherwise than embarking on his trip home for his own convenience.
The principal authority relied on by the claimant, and the only authority cited by the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board, in support of the conclusion that the claimant was actually engaged in the furtherance of the business or affairs of Hyatt House when he was at the bus stop is Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board v. Borough of Plum, 20 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 35, 340 A.2d 637 (1975). This case is not authority for an award here because it represents only an application of the exception to the general rule of noncompensability for employes without fixed places of work. The claimant’s decedent in Borough of Plum was a truck driver who hauled asphalt between an asphalt plant and a job site in another town who was
As the following will show, we have carefully reviewed all of the cases cited by the claimant and find none which would support an award under the facts of this case. In Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board v. Ira Berger & Sons, 470 Pa. 239, 368 A.2d 282 (1977) the Supreme Court held that a worker’s condition of conversion neurosis resulting from the negligent treatment of a compensable injury was compensable as causally related to the original compensable injury.
Finding no support in the law for the award of compensation for the losses and expenses incurred by the claimant in the incident at the bus stop, we are required to and do reverse the order of the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board and remand the record for the ascertainment of the compensable items relating to the injury to the claimant’s eye sustained at his place of employment on which we may enter judgment on praecipe.
Order
And Now, this 23rd day of November, 1981, the order of the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board awarding benefits to Solomon J. Kamara is reversed. The record is remanded for the purpose of ascertaining the compensable medical expenses due to the injury to Kamara’s eye sustained at his place of employment with respect to which an appropriate judgment will be entered upon praecipe of a party.