Traci Teer (Atlanta, GA) (Workers’ Compensation) successfully defended an “all issues” Georgia workers’ compensation case. In Toler v. Brunswick Memorial Park, the Claimant worked as a part-time office manager at a funeral home. On June 29, 2016, she slipped and fell while turning a corner to go to the restroom. She sustained multiple injuries and was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. Significantly, she admitted to not knowing what caused her fall, although she said that water from a nearby fountain occasionally collected on the floor. The claim was denied by the insurer as non-compensable pursuant to O.C.G.A. 34-9-1.
As the central question involved causation the defense focused on the fact that the mechanism of injury – walking – is an everyday activity. There was nothing “peculiar to her employment” about it, and no substance or defect on the floor the claimant could point to as causing her fall. While she made a sympathetic witness the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) concluded this was not a work-related accident in that while she was “in the course of” her employment (i.e. “on the clock”) the incident did not “arise out of” her employment, as there was no connection between the workplace itself and the fall. Accordingly, the ALJ denied the claimant’s request for weekly income benefits, payment of accrued medical expenses, ongoing medical treatment, and attorney’s fees.