71 Van Natta 1261 (2019)
In the Matter of the Compensation of W. LEIGH CASTLETON, Claimant
WCB No. 18-03902
Oregon Worker Compensation
November 5, 2019
Pancic
Law, Claimant Attorneys
Goehler & Associates, Defense Attorneys
Reviewing Panel: Members Woodford and Lanning.
ORDER ON REVIEW
Claimant
requests review of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ)
Ilias’s order that upheld the insurer’s denial of
her head injury claim. On review, the issue is course and
scope of claimant’s employment.
We
adopt and affirm the ALJ’s order with the following
supplementation.
The ALJ
applied the “social or recreational activities”
exclusion under ORS 656.005(7)(b)(B) to determine that
claimant’s injury was not compensable because she fell
in a parking lot after leaving her hotel room with a coworker
to buy cigarettes.
On
review, claimant contends that going out to buy cigarettes
was not a social or recreational activity primarily for her
own pleasure, because she was a traveling employee who was
attending an out-of-state conference at the direction of (and
for the benefit of) her employer. However, despite
claimant’s “traveling employee” status, her
injury is properly excluded from compensability under ORS
656.005(7)(b)(B). We reason as follows.
In
Summer Cook, [69 Van Natta 1227], 1229 (2017), we
explained that the “social or recreational
activities” exclusion under ORS 656.005(7)(b)(B)
applies to traveling employees. Thus, while claimant urges us
to “look broadly” in defining the injury causing
activity (i.e. claimant was attending an
out-of-state work conference), ORS 656.005(7)(b)(B) directs
us to examine the character of the activity that more
proximately resulted in the claimant’s injury.
Accordingly, we proceed to determine whether claimant’s
activity of going out to purchase cigarettes should be
excluded under ORS 656.005(7)(b)(B).
ORS
656.005(7)(b)(B) raises three questions: (1) whether the
worker was engaging in or performing a “social or
recreational activity”; (2) whether the worker was...