The self-insured employer appeals the compensation judge’s finding that the employee’s injury of December 10, 2012, arose out of and in the course and scope of his employment, and the judge’s award of temporary disability benefits, medical expenses, and rehabilitation benefits.  We affirm.

There is little dispute on appeal with respect to the underlying facts of this case.  Richard Renwick, the employee, began working for Halverson & Blaiser Group, the self-insured employer, in June 1996 as an on-site caretaker of apartment buildings.  In 1998, the employee became responsible for two adjacent apartment buildings located at 628 and 636 Grand Avenue in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  In exchange for his caretaking duties, the employee received a $540.00 monthly rental credit, approximately 75 percent of the monthly rent.

As a residential caretaker, the employee was responsible for cleaning and maintaining the two apartment buildings.  The employee did not have regularly scheduled hours of work but was available to assist tenants and perform duties on a 24-hour per day basis.  His caretaking duties included maintaining the common areas where he cleaned the entryways, hallways, stairs, and laundry room.  He discarded building trash, removing it to a dumpster in the rear of the buildings, and maintained the area around the dumpster, keeping it free of debris.

On the evening of December 9, 2012, the City of Saint Paul declared a snow emergency.  Approximately 14 inches of snow had fallen that day.  The employee normally parked his personal vehicle on Grand Avenue, but that evening he parked in an open space in the tenant lot behind the apartment buildings so as not to impede city plows.  By the early morning of December 10, 2012, the snow on Grand Avenue had been cleared.  The tenant parking lot had not been cleared.

That morning, the employee proceeded out the door of his apartment and walked up a flight of steps to a landing near the back door entryway on his way to return his vehicle to Grand Avenue.  On the landing, the employee found two discarded curtain rods, two to three feet in length, lying on the floor.  Concerned that someone might trip on them; he picked up the rods and headed outside towards the dumpster.  While en-route, the employee stopped at his vehicle which was parked about 10 to 12 feet to the left of the door and started the vehicle to warm it up.  He then walked about 25 to 30 feet to the dumpster to dispose of the curtain rods.

While walking back across the parking lot, the employee slipped on an icy rut and fell to the ground.  The employee sustained a serious injury to the right lower extremity as a result of the fall.  At the time of the injury, the employer’s property manager was shoveling snow from the walk in front of the buildings.  She did not witness the fall, but heard the employee scream.  The manager walked to the back of the building where she saw the employee lying on the snow, and called 911 for assistance.  The employee was transported by ambulance to United Hospital.

The employee was subsequently diagnosed with a right knee tibial plateau fracture, markedly displaced and comminuted, extending to a right tibial shaft fracture.^[1]  The next day on December 11, 2012, the employee underwent an open reduction and internal fixation of the right proximal tibial plateau fracture and tibial shaft fracture.

As a result of the injury, the treating surgeon placed physical restrictions upon the employee’s activities, limiting the employee to sedentary work only.  In light of his physical restrictions, the employer was unable to offer the employee any work within his limitations.  Although the employee was unable to resume his caretaking and other duties after the injury, the employer gave the employee monthly rent credits through February 28, 2013.  The employee is no longer employed by the employer.

On February 26, 2013, the employee filed a claim petition seeking workers’ compensation benefits.  The employer denied primary liability asserting the injury did not arise out of and in the course and scope of his employment with the employer.  Following an evidentiary hearing, a compensation judge found the employee’s injury arose out of and in the course and scope of his employment as an apartment caretaker.  Just prior to the evidentiary hearing, the parties stipulated that if the personal injury was found compensable, the employee would be entitled to temporary benefits and the intervenors would be entitled to reimbursement for services or benefits provided.  Accordingly, the compensation judge awarded temporary partial and temporary total disability benefits, medical expenses, and rehabilitation benefits.  The self-insured employer appeals.

In reviewing cases on appeal, the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals must determine whether “the findings of fact and order [are] clearly erroneous and unsupported by substantial evidence in view of the entire record as submitted.”  Minn. Stat. § 176.421, subd. 1 (2012).  Substantial evidence supports the findings if, in the context of the entire record, “they are supported by evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate.”  Hengemuhle v. Long Prairie Jaycees, 358 N.W.2d 54, 59, 37 W.C.D. 235, 239 (Minn. 1984).  Where evidence conflicts or more than one inference may reasonably be drawn from the evidence, the findings are to be affirmed.  Id. at 60, 37 W.C.D. at 240.  Similarly, findings of fact should not be disturbed, even though the reviewing court might disagree with them, “unless they are clearly erroneous in the sense that they are manifestly contrary to the weight of evidence or not reasonably supported by the evidence as a whole.”  Northern States Power Co. v. Lyon Food Prods., Inc., 304 Minn. 196, 201, 229 N.W.2d 521, 524 (1975).

Minn. Stat. § 176.021, subd. 1, provides that every employer is liable for compensation “in every case of personal injury . . . arising out of and in the course of employment without regard to the question of negligence.”  The employee bears the burden of proof.

A “personal injury” is defined as an injury that occurs while the employee is “engaged in, on, or about the premises where the employee’s services [for the employer] require the employee’s presence as part of that service at the time of injury and during the hours of that service.”  Minn. Stat. § 176.011, subd. 16.  The phrase “in the course of” refers to the time, place, and circumstances of the incident causing the employee’s injury, while “arising out of” connotes a causal connection between the employee’s injury and the employment.  Gibberd v. Control Data Corp., 424 N.W.2d 776, 780, 40 W.C.D. 1040, 1047 (Minn. 1988).  The requisite causal connection exists “if the injury has its origin with a hazard or risk connected with the employment, and flows therefrom as a natural incident of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the work.”  Nelson v. City of St. Paul, 249 Minn. 53, 56, 81 N.W.2d 272, 276, 19 W.C.D. 120, 123 (1957); quoted in Dykhoff v. Xcel Energy, 840 N.W.2d 821, 826, 73 W.C.D. 865, 871-72 (Minn. 2013).  The supreme court has recognized that no one comprehensive definition can be fashioned to fit all cases and that each case must, therefore, stand on its own facts.  Gibberd, 424 N.W.2d at 790, 40 W.C.D. at 1047.

Citing Gillund v. Royal/Milbank Ins. Co., 46 W.C.D. 520 (W.C.C.A. 1992), the self-insured employer argues the injury occurred at the employee’s home and that an injury that occurs at a home office is not afforded the same presumption of work-relatedness afforded injuries occurring on an employer’s premises.  The employer maintains that, like Mr. Gillund, the employee was engaged in an activity normally incident to his role as a householder, that is, moving his personal vehicle from the apartment parking lot to the public street, and not an activity incidental to his employment, and the injury is , therefore, not compensable.

In Gillund, the employee maintained a home office and traveled throughout northern Minnesota as an insurance property loss examiner.  The employer provided employee a company car for work and for personal use.  The employee sustained a heart attack while shoveling his driveway and sidewalks at his home.  The employee testified that on the morning of the heart attack, he followed his usual custom of shoveling when there had been a snowfall, and that clearing away a few inches of snow would not have been necessary for getting the car on the road; he just liked to keep his sidewalks clear.

We find Gillund inapplicable legally and factually.  In the case before us, it is undisputed the injury occurred in a parking lot maintained by the employer for the benefit of the apartment tenants.  As such, even if the area could be construed to be part of the employee’s “residence,” it is also unquestionably part of the the employer’s premises where the employee’s services as the apartment caretaker required the employee’s presence as part of his employment.  Minn. Stat. § 176.011, subd. 16.

Moreover, the employer’s argument ignores the compensation judge’s findings, supported by substantial evidence, that the employee found debris in the back entryway of the apartment building as he was exiting, and, instead of getting in his vehicle and driving off, picked up the debris and walked across the parking lot to dispose of the debris in the dumpster at the rear of the apartment buildings.  The employer’s property manager testified it was the employer’s expectation that the employee would dispose of debris he found lying in the common areas, regardless of the time of day.  As such, as an incident and obligation of his employment, the employee was exposed to the hazard or risk of walking across an icy, rutted parking lot while performing his duties as the apartment caretaker.  Compare Olson v. Trinity Lodge No. 282, 226 Minn. 141, 147-48, 32 N.W.2d 255, 259, 15 W.C.D. 251 (1948) (the employee’s injuries arose out of his employment when “as an incident and as an obligation of his employment, [he] was exposed to the risk of being upon an icy sidewalk constituting a part of the working premises”).^[2]

The self-insured employer argues, however, that the employee deviated from his work activities and was returning to his van to complete his personal errand at the time of the injury, citing Butler v. Hennepin County Home School, slip. op. (W.C.C.A. Feb. 6, 1995).

In Butler, the employee’s job duties as an account clerk required her to drive to the employer’s bank to make deposits and withdrawals.  On the date of the injury, instead of proceeding directly to the bank, the employee chose to travel a different route to a restaurant to get lunch with the intention of eating it on the way to the bank.  The employee was injured when she slipped in the restaurant parking lot after taking a few steps towards the restaurant.  Compensation was denied on the basis that the employee’s trip to the restaurant had no business purpose and was a deviation from the route on which her business purpose would have taken her.

The deviation rule applies in cases involving business travel.^[3]  This case does not involve a business trip.  The injury occurred on the employer’s premises.  The employee walked across the tenant parking lot, disposed of the curtain rods, and began walking back across the lot.  The employee’s original intention of moving his vehicle from the parking lot to the public street was superseded by the employment-related activity of discarding the debris in the dumpster.  The compensation judge addressed the issue in her memorandum, concluding that,

The employee’s act of removing and discarding debris from the apartment building back entryway was not personal to him but was part of his employment obligations.  It was this employment-related activity that placed the employee in the rutted and snow-covered tenant parking lot walking back from the dumpster.  There is substantial evidence in the record as a whole to support the conclusion that the employee met his burden of establishing a causal connection between his work and his personal injury, and to support the compensation judge’s finding that the employee’s injury arose out of and in the course and scope of his employment as an apartment caretaker.  We affirm.